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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Explore Library of Congress’s Digital Collections
Dive into the Library’s Digital Collections to explore just about any topic imaginable. Click through historical portraits and cityscape photographs, listen to sound recordings and oral histories, study American history and world cultures, discover local history and folklife traditions, explore maps, music, manuscripts and so much more. With digitized collections of more than 2.4 million… Read more
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DH Monday: CFP – Urban Assemblage : The City as Architecture, Media, AI and Big Data
Dates: 28-30 June 2021 Places: London / Hatfield, UK / Virtual Early Abstracts: 30 June 2020 This conference is planned as a hybrid in-person and virtual event. If necessary it will be moved to a fully virtual format. The keynote will be held in London. In-person presentations will take place in the University of Hertfordshire campus… Read more
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A Virtual Tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park Studio, 1898-1909
At his Oak Park Studio (1898-1909), Frank Lloyd Wright developed a uniquely American form of architecture, heading a movement later referred to as the “Prairie School.” Major buildings of Wright’s Prairie Era, including the Larkin Administration Building, Unity Temple, and the Frederick C. Robie House, were all designed at this site. Now you can virtually… Read more
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DH Monday: DAHJ, vol. 5: History of Digital Art CFP
Deadline: Jan 31, 2020 For the upcoming issue – vol. 5: “History of Digital Art” – the International Journal of Digital Art History (DAHJ) asks for contributions on the following topics: New perspectives on traditional fields of the history of digital art, like early computer art, internet art, interactive computer-based art, and other forms Genealogies… Read more
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SAH Archipedia is now Open-Access
Histories, photos and maps for over 20,000 structures and sites in the U.S. are now freely available to the public via the new open-access, mobile-friendly edition of SAH Archipedia, an authoritative online encyclopedia of the built environment of the United States. Developed by the Society of Architectural Historians and University of Virginia Press with lead… Read more
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DH Monday: The inaugural workshops for the 2019-2020 IRC DIL Mapping Series
It will be DH Friday on October 11 when we host Smith College’s Andrew Maurer who will give two hands-on workshops on 3D Visualization for the Humanities: Photogrammetry Basics (9:00am-12:00pm) – Photogrammetry, the process of using still images to produce digital 3D models, provides new possibilities for visualizing and interpreting cultural objects. In this hands-on… Read more