Material / Image Research Lab (MIRL)

The Red Dot

Named after the small red sticker that once guided scholars through legacy 35mm slides, The Red Dot is here to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of visual and material research. While rooted in the University of California, Santa Barbara community, our posts are open to all.

At MIRL, we engage with art history, digital humanities, and material culture through hands-on research and archival projects. Guided by our core principles—critical engagement with visual and material culture, ethical stewardship of images and data, and innovative approaches to research and pedagogy—we work at the intersection of technology and the humanities. We are especially interested in how digital tools can expand the study of images, objects, and spaces.

Here, we’ll share insights on Digital Art History and Architectural History, highlight new image and data resources, discuss copyright and ethical considerations, and spotlight events that shape our field.

The Red Dot © 2025 is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 

  • New exhibitions in Southern California

    A few new shows have opened in the last two weeks in case you’re heading to the LA area: At LACMA: Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea At the Getty: Cast in Bronze:  French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution and In Focus: Making a Scene (Note: the Getty is closed on July 4)… Read more

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  • Most complete topographic map of Earth published

    This week NASA and ASTER (Japan’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) released a new and more complete digital topographic map of Earth. Best of all, it is available online to users everywhere at no cost. NASA’s press release is here, with links to downloading the ASTER global digital elevation model Read more

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  • accessCeramics: a successful collaborative image project

    Accessceramics.org is a collaborative database project which allows users to contribute images of contemporary ceramics for educational purposes.  It was started by Ted Vogel and Margo Ballantyne at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, and it uses Flickr image software to upload, organize and display the images.  It can be browsed by artist name, media,… Read more

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  • A helpful digitization site

    Make it Digital: This new site, provided by the New Zealand government, includes loads of helpful hints and answers to difficult questions about how to digitize (technically, legally, aesthetically). Read more

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  • East African photo collection now online

    The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs, housed in the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University, is now online and accessible to the public. This rare collection includes roughly 7,610 photographs, 230 glass lantern slides, and various additional materials from 1860 to 1960. Read more

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  • Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz online exhibitions

    The Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz announced a new online exhibition on The Cloister of Monreale. The exhibition offers general views of the cloister but it’s the extensive details of the capitals that make it worth seeing. Clicking on each detail opens a bit bigger image, but to get an even better view, follow the “full-size”… Read more

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