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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DH Monday: Digital Heritage Seminar: Image Processing (online/Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België)
The Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België (KBR) invites you to attend a scholarly series on digital cultural heritage: the KBR Digital Heritage Seminar, in cooperation with ULB-UGent-VUB-UCL. In this series from February to June 2022, they will virtually host three academic scholars in presenting their work on cultural heritage and specifically on image processing. “The devil… Read more
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Protest Preserved: Signs from D.C.’s Black Lives Matter Memorial Fence at the LoC
It was a year ago this week that the Black Lives Matter signs came down from the Lafayette Park fence where they had garnered national attention as a rallying point for protests for nearly a year. The park, across the street from the White House, had been fenced off to keep protesters at a distance.… Read more
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DH Monday: CFP – 54th Annual Conference of the IVLA (hybrid / August 10-12 2022, University of Jyväskylä, Finland)
54th Annual Conference of the International Visual Literacy Association: Connecting & Sharing – Envisioning the Futures of Visual Literacy Important Dates: Abstract submission opens: 10 January 2022 Abstract submission deadline: 28 February 2022 Notification of acceptance: 31 March 2022 Conference dates: 10-12 August 2022 Conference Theme The past two years of ongoing restrictions caused… Read more
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DH Monday-on-a-Friday: Art Datathon: A Two-Day Hybrid Event (February 11-12, 2022 / online & Tufts University Art Galleries)
Did you know our art collections can tell important stories about diversity, equity, and inclusion? The two events below are part of the programming for the Tufts University Art Galleries 2-day event, Art Datathon. While much of the programming is for Tufts students only, these are free and open to all: Friday, 3:30-4:30PM EST /… Read more
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DH Monday: CFP: Visual Science of Art Conference 2022: Realities (Amsterdam, 24-27 Aug 22)
Symposium and Tutorial Proposal CFP Deadline: March 1, 2022 Abstract CFP: April 1 – May 1, 2022 The Visual Science of Art Conference (VSAC) is traditionally a satellite symposium of the European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP). This edition is no exception but they will be organised in different cities: VSAC in Amsterdam and ECVP… Read more
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Dada’s home: Organizations in France and the US Launch Vast Marcel Duchamp Research Portal
An expansive online research portal centered on the life and work of the artist Marcel Duchamp has been launched, giving the at-home investigators and Cubism-curious free access to more than 18,000 documents and around 50,000 images. The initiative is the result of a seven-year collaboration between three institutions, one American and two French, the Philadelphia… Read more