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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Update: The Dead Sea Scrolls 2.0
In 2011, we reported that The Israeli Museum launched The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls, an online resource for beautiful images and scholarly translations of the scrolls. Now, the Israel Antiquities Authority just debuted an upgraded version of its Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library. It includes 10,000 new multispectral images as well as improved… Read more
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Jackson Pollock’s Mural to show at the Getty
Almost two years ago, the University of Iowa Museum of Art sent Jackson Pollock’s Mural (1943) — a large 8 x 20 foot canvas — to the Getty for technical study and conservation. This extensive study has yielded “much new and significant information about the painting and its role in a transitional moment in Pollock’s… Read more
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Architecture & Design Film Festival coming to LA, March 12-16, 2014
The Architecture & Design Film Festival, the “nation’s largest film festival celebrating the creative spirit of architecture and design,” is coming to Los Angeles for the first time in its five-year history. ADFF Los Angeles will be held at the downtown Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 South Spring Street, and will showcase more than 30… Read more
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Where do you stand on Fair Use?
For those who are interested in issues of image Fair Use, the College Art Association has released Copyright, Permissions and Fair Use among Visual Artists and the Academic and Museum Visual Arts Communities: An Issues Report. The extensive report summarizes 100 interviews, related to the use of third-party images in creative and scholarly work, conducted among… Read more
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Another art museum in financial crisis
The Board of Trustees of Everson Museum of Art, in Syracuse, NY, has announced it has no alternative but to create a “special task force to develop and implement a recovery plan” for the deficit-laden institution. As of now, they have a projected deficit of $500,000 in this fiscal year and have been forced to cancel… Read more
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View Getty publications in a Virtual Library
Getty Publications is now offering users (free of charge!) digital copies of 235 Getty backlist titles, including many that are now out of print, from the Museum, the Conservation Institute, and the Research Institute. For additional information on digital publication resources offered by the Getty, click here. Read more