The Red Dot takes its name from the small sticker that once marked slides in a physical archive, flagging them as worth a second look. We’re keeping that spirit alive here.
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.
The Red Dot © 2025 is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
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A recommendation for “Tim’s Vermeer”
Tim’s Vermeer recently played in Santa Barbara at the film festival. It’s a documentary about Tim Jenison, a Texas optics engineer who long wondered how Vermeer managed to achieve such a “photographic” and light-infused effect in his paintings. He develops an interesting theory, and sets about recreating The Music Lesson using a method he thinks… Read more
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Architect Valentines
Jody Brown at Coffee with an Architect offers up a Valentine’s exclusive: Architect Valentines. Because architects are romantic. Design to send one to someone you love. via ArchDaily Read more
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All the photography gadgets you’ll ever need!
Red Dot just learned about a great online store that specializes in gadgets that turn your phone into a super camera, lets you record video with your glasses, turn your iPhone into a Polaroid, or serve your coffee in a mug that looks like a lens. PhotoJojo is where we’ll be doing our shopping! Read more
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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