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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World Photography Day: 25 Emerging Architectural Photographers from Around the Globe
Written by Paula Pintos, via ArchDaily. Architectural photography has developed into its own art form, and it might be as important as the built work itself. We consume architecture not only physically and spatially in a building but also through photographs. A good image reportage work can give the viewer a feeling of the atmosphere,… Read more
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DH Monday: CFP – ConCave Ph.D. Symposium 2022: Divergence in Architectural Research (April 7-8, 2022 / Georgia Tech | Atlanta, GA
Deadline for Abstract Submission: September 15, 2021 “Divergence in Architectural Research” is an international doctorate symposium organized by the ConCave Ph.D. Student Group in the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Architecture. The Ph.D. Symposium seeks to create a platform for sharing current research in architecture, with invited scholars and other doctoral students from architecture… Read more
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DH Monday: A “Virtual Village” Mapping Where Artists, Publishers and Activists Lived
Explore “Virtual Village” — South of Union Square where Village Preservation, a New York preservation group, launches online mapping tool to champion former haunts of artists and activists. This is just one of the visual stories created with the platform Urban Archive, an app (for both web and iOS) that enhances collection engagement and digital… Read more
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Calisphere Soars Past Two Million Digital Primary Resource Items
Calisphere announced that it now provides access to over two million historical images, texts, recordings, and other primary resources from the state of California’s remarkable digital collections. Explore early maps of the world; photographs from historical newspapers; paintings reflecting periods of cultural significance; personal journals and diaries charting new frontiers; political posters calling for decades… Read more
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Speculative Annotation Invites Public to Interact with Digitized Collections at the LoC
Created by artist and 2021 Innovator in Residence Courtney McClellan, Speculative Annotation is an open-source dynamic web application and public art project. The app presents a unique mini collection of free-to-use items from the Library for students, teachers and learners to annotate through captions, drawings and other types of mark-making. As a special feature for… Read more
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DH Monday: CFP: Critical Data in Art Market Research (College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL/February 16-19, 2022)
College Art Association Annual Conference (Chicago, IL/February 16-19, 2022)Submission Deadline: September 16, 2021 TIAMSA Session 2: Critical Data in Art Market Research In recent years, the study of the art market has seen significant progress due to the increasing availability of digitized source materials, such as dealer archives and stock books, auction catalogs or exhibition… Read more