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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Introducing ArchDaily’s AD Essentials
AD Essentials from ArchDaily is a series of “in-depth overviews of architecture’s most important topics” by connecting together some of their best articles from the past (updated with additional links to relevant news stories and other articles). Launched July 13th, the series has already posted surveys of Sustainability and Modernism. Do you have a topic… Read more
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Next Practices in Museum Digital and Technology
The annual Next Practices in Digital and Technology from the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) is available and highlights 41 examples of recent and ongoing digital initiatives designed by AAMD member museums. From social media and mobile apps, to in-gallery interpretation and behind-the-scenes collections management, Next Practices in Digital and Technology explores the ways museums… Read more
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Artistic genius? There’s an algorithm for that
Researchers say they have created a quantitative way to assess “creativity” in works of art that they argue comes close to a scholarly assessment. Ahmed Elgammal and Babak Saleh (The Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Rutgers University) used 1,710 paintings available on Artchive.com and ran them through their algorithm that looked… Read more
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Ransom Center makes more than 22,000 images available
The Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, has adopted an open access policy, removing the requirement for permission and use fees for a significant portion of its online collections believed to be in the public domain. In conjunction with the release of the policy, the Ransom… Read more
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Miriam Schapiro dies at 91
Painter, sculptor, and printmaker Miriam Schapiro, who helped spearhead the feminist art movement in the 1970s, inspiring generations of artists, died on June 20 at age 91 after a long illness. via Artnews Read more
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UCSB Acquires Major Chicano/Latino Graphic Art Collections
The UCSB Library has acquired two art collections — The Mission Gráfica and La Raza Graphics — from the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA) in San Francisco comprised of roughly 2,000 historical silkscreen print posters from the Chicano / Latino Visual Arts movement plus organizational records from the MCCLA. These will be housed… Read more