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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New Resource: The Kress Collection Digital Archive
The Kress Collection Digital Archive virtually unites objects in the Kress Collection and illustrates their history, acquisition, condition and care, and distribution. Gallery Archives staff compiled data about objects, related archival materials, object history (acquisitions and distributions), and associated people and organizations (artists, institutions, dealers and collectors, and historians and conservators). High-quality digital images of… Read more
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DH Monday, Part II: Banister Fletcher Panel Conversation: Mapping and Measures
This panel discussion considers how quantitative values and numbers mediate how cities and lives are shaped. Banister Fletcher Panel Conversation: Mapping and Measures Monday, March 15, 2021, 10:30 – 12:30 PDT Register at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/banister-fletcher-panel-conversation-mapping-and-measures-tickets-141422461389 This online panel conversation and its associated workshop, gathering scholars and practitioners from both sides of the Atlantic, will explore the… Read more
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DH Monday: Visiting Professorship in Digital and Public History, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice
Call: Visiting Professorship in Digital and Public History, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice Application deadline: March 10, 2021 The Department of Humanities (DSU) of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH) invite expressions of interest for the position of Visiting Professor in Digital and Public History. The professorship… Read more
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DH Monday: Traversing Topologies: Imagining worlds and knowledge with/through artistic research
Call for Conference Papers: Traversing Topologies: Imagining worlds and knowledge with/through artistic research (Lucerne / Swiss Artistic Research Network, Sep 23–25, 2021) Deadline: Mar 31, 2021 Topology is to an equal extent an over- and under-determined topos. It exists nearly independently in various individual disciplines, refers foremost descriptively to the arrangement of things in space-time,… Read more
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DH Monday: CFP – TECHNOLOGY | ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN Issue 6:1 Histories
Deadline: June 15, 2021 Submission Guidelines: https://tadjournal.org/author-guide/ Submission Portal: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tadjournal For its upcoming issue, TECHNOLOGY | ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN (TAD) seeks submissions exploring the multivalent relationships between technology and the history of the built environment. How are new technologies transforming historical research? How are practitioners and researchers utilizing technology to advance historic preservation, restoration,… Read more
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Alexander Calder’s newly digitized archive now available
The Calder Foundation has amassed and organized an exhaustive archive on Alexander Calder and his work. The archive contains more than 26,000 historic photographs, dozens of films, and thousands of books, magazines, and press clippings, in addition to over 130,000 documents. The Foundation has registered in its archive more than 22,000 works made by Calder,… Read more