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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
Egyptian museum antiquites looted and damaged
Reports have been surfacing that the Malawi National Museum in Minya, Egypt (roughly 190 miles SW of Cairo) has been severely looted during the last week’s demonstrations and unrest. Most portable objects were stolen while heavier objects were burned or vandalized. also via Guardian, LA Times, Daily News Egypt and Unesco Read more
-
Spanish fresco’s “amateur restoration,” one year later
One year ago this month we reported about an enthusiastic parishioner from the Sanctuary of Mercy Church, in Borja, Spain, who “helped” restore a deteriorating church fresco depicting Christ as Ecce Homo. As it turned out, the restoration was so popular it became a tourist attraction, raising over $66,000 for the church and inspiring a… Read more
-
Blogs getting involved with “A Day for Detroit”
Recently, Detroit’s Emergency Manager has called for Christie’s auction appraisers to determine the current value of the Detroit Institute of Arts‘ holdings, potentially to be sold to help pay off the city’s debt. Now a number of websites and blogs have responded by raising awareness of the museum’s vast and important collection and what’s at… Read more