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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Travel days are over for these paintings
There’s an interesting article in The Guardian about the growing number of paintings which no longer travel from their home repositories. The reasons are plenty, including fragility (Degas’ Danseuse), weight (The Winged Victory of Samothrace), size (Veronese’s Wedding Feast at Cana), or size AND fragility (Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa). Another recurring hindrance to… Read more
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Creating anamorphosis, and other optical illusions
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHPKf_Hj1GA] This artist, “Vamos”, and his YouTube channel, are a recent discovery. Vamos specializes in drawing and painting illusions, and he films the process in time-lapse. The one linked above showing the creation of anamorphosis using a Rubik’s Cube is especially clever. If you are intrigued and want to see more, visit his YouTube… Read more
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Developments in Reverse Image Searching
We have talked about reverse image searching with TinEye here in the past – here is some recent research that takes the concept further. John Resig collaborated with the Frick Art Reference Library to analyze images lacking identification from their collection. Using software developed off the TinEye model he was able to establish trends, and… Read more
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BREAKING NEWS: C. R. Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art on fire
The BBC is reporting that firefighters are battling a fire at Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s iconic building Glasgow School of Art. It appears the fire started when a projector exploded in the basement. Everyone in the building was able to evacuate. UPDATES: The Glasgow School of Art has begun inspecting the damage, with good and bad… Read more
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The Morgan Library’s Rembrandt prints now available online
The Morgan Library & Museum announced they have digitized their collection of Rembrandt etchings — almost five hundred images — and have made them available online. The Morgan holds impressions of most of the three hundred or so known etchings by Rembrandt, as well as multiple, often exceedingly rare impressions of various states. Each etching… Read more
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MAK Center’s Schindler House Tour, May 17-18, 2014
The MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles, will celebrate its 20th year by offering a tour of a number of exemplary private houses by R.M. Schindler. The programming opens with a wine reception and talk with Judith Sheine (Professor of Architectural History at the University of Oregon) at Schindler’s How House in Silver… Read more