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
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Son of Stinky set to bloom at Huntington
The famous “Corpse Flower” at the Huntington Garden and Library is set to bloom again any day now. This plant, which smells like rotting meat when it blooms, only opens up once in several years, and only stays in bloom for a few days. It’s been growing 3 to 5 inches every day for the… Read more
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A Richard Ross Original at the VRC
Photographer Richard Ross came by yesterday to photograph this “organic installation” at the VRC. We will soon be adding nearly 700 Richard Ross photographs to the VRC image database. They will include images from his publications Museology (1989), Gathering Light (2000), Waiting for the End of the World (2004), and Architecture of Authority (2007),… Read more
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Venice Biennale opens
La Biennale di Venezia’s 53rd International Art Exhibition — with the theme “Making Worlds” — opened on 7 June with around 90 participating artists in the main exhibition (and a record number of participating countries: 77). The show runs through 22 November 2009. Read more
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ARTstor announcement and collection additions
ARTstor has added new images from the following collections: American Institute of Indian Studies Archive in Gurgaon, Haryana, India: the first release of South Asian art and architecture images (more than 12,000 of what will be roughly 60,000 total) Carl and Jennifer Strom Archive: 3,200 unique images from Korean Buddhist monasteries and temples ARTstor has… Read more
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Newly expanded American galleries open at the Huntington
The Virginia Steele Scott Galleries, a part of The Huntington Art Collections in San Marino, have undergone an extensive expansion and on 30 May reopened to the public. The new space houses a growing American art collection, which will be displayed in an area more than twice its previous size. Read more
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Additions to the VRC image database, part 2
Material that we have added to the image database recently includes: Victorian painting (90 images) Nineteenth and twentieth-century photography (250 images) Moche, Inca and Tiahuanaco (Andean Peru) ceramics, textiles, maps and archaeological material (200 images) Twentieth-century contextual material (news photographs, political documents, etc.) (300 images) If you would like a database account and/or orientation please… Read more