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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Field Notes: Pandemic Teaching
Places Journal has published a six-part series of essays addressing and exploring the shift to online teaching. From their summary: The massive move to online teaching has raised acute challenges and general anxieties. Some are practical and technical; others are more conceptual, political, and even philosophical, involving the importance of campus community, the role of… Read more
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Take the Survey for The SAH Data Project: Analyzing Architectural History in Higher Education
The SAH Data Project is gathering quantitative and qualitative information about the status of architectural history as a field in higher education in the United States. The study is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and scheduled to be completed in December 2020. A full report of the findings will be available on the… Read more
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DH Monday: How digital humanities can help in a pandemic
Celia Luterbacher, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne has published, “How digital humanities can help in a pandemic,” an article discussing how employing digital humanities helps engage the community and reveal how people understand data. h/t IHC Read more
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ACSA108 Virtual Conference: Border Consortium Workshop for Actionable Spatial Practice and Research
The US/Mexico border is home to unique spatial practices and resources, locally grounded but geographically distributed along its 1,954-mile length. This workshop provides a rare opportunity to condense this distributed content by convening a diversity of spatial practitioners, researchers, and educators in one virtual space, in order to outline challenges and opportunities specific to the… Read more
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DH Friday: The SAH Data Project Presents a Data-Driven Conversation Webinar
Because Monday is a holiday, we’re having a DH Friday instead! Join Moderator Sarah M. Dreller, Society of Architectural Historians (SAH Data Project Researcher), for a SAH webinar, “The SAH Data Project Presents a Data-Driven Conversation about the Potential Future of Architectural History Research and Publishing” on Tuesday, May 26 at 9:00 AM (Pacific Time).… Read more
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Rijksmuseum’s “hyper-resolution” photo of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch
As experienced and reviewed by BBC’s Will Gompertz. Click the image to go directly to the photo. Read more