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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Creative Hallowe’en costumes
As we get closer to Hallowe’en we thought these artwork-inspired costumes would be inspiration for all of you. If you do make something super creative this year, please send Red Dot a photo. Roy Lichtenstein is especially popular – lots of work, but the results are worth it. Read more
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LA’s Modernist homes vs. McMansions
Andrew Romano’s Daily Beast essay Trading Modernist for McMansion addresses the issue that a “certain kind of modernist property—namely, a lesser-known house situated on a prime lot in an expensive neighborhood—is still at risk” in Los Angeles neighborhoods like Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Read more
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How do you browse through 1.6 million images?
With the beginning of the academic year fast approaching, ARTstor offers this refresher on navigating through their ever-growing library of images. This post covers browsing the four categories of Geography, Classification (i.e. media), Collection, and Featured Groups. Another helpful browsing tool is the Associated Images icon () at the bottom of some thumbnails: clicking on this… Read more
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Art Rules
The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, has launched a new online forum called Art Rules. Here’s how it works: The website asks visitors to answer the question: “What is art?” Their answers appear on the website for other visitors to comment on, and conversations are started around the submitted ‘rules’. Visitors can ‘Agree’ or ‘Disagree’… Read more
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Open access film periodicals
Whether you’re doing research on the history of the film industry, or you just want to spend a few hours in a bygone era of film, the Media History Project’s Digital Library is your site. Included are fan magazines, cinema history periodicals, technical journals, and more. They recently made available extensive runs of Film… Read more