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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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
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Pure fun – Panoramas from Paris
This is breathtaking – a 360 degree nighttime view of Paris from the Eiffel Tower in Quicktime. It’s just one of the beautiful panoramas by Eric Rougier – you can see all of them at his website “Panoramas from Paris”, which includes instructions to maximize viewing of these QTVR gems. Rougier is one of the… Read more
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Multi-media teaching site: SmartHistory
Smarthistory is “a free multi-media web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook.” It was started in 2005 by Drs. Beth Harris and Steven Zucker, who found themselves dissatisfied with traditional survey texts. They created a series of audio guides to accompany works at the Metropolitan Museum of… Read more