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
-
New app for up-to-date listings of LA exhibitions
What’s on Los Angeles is a new mobile app created by LA artists Jody Zellen and Brian C. Moss to help users keep up with current exhibitions at the area’s galleries and other art institutions. The app offers browsing by name or location (bonus: each venue’s listing includes a helpful map link) and highlights upcoming… Read more
-
The Interaction of Albers and iPad
Yale University Press announced a new iPad app for Josef Albers’ influential 1963 book Interaction of Color. The app (free to download, but the full digital edition is $9.99) has the full text as well as a variety of digital interactive enhancements, including a new color palette tool which allows users to engage in the… Read more
-
UCSB’s own Corpse Flower ready for her close-up
Chanel is nearly out! Chanel is a Titan Arum, better known as the Corpse Flower due to the rotting meat stench which attracts pollinating insects. These plants originate in Sumatra, Indonesia, and can take up to 10 years to bloom. You can see her progress on this page where the photo is refreshed every five… Read more
-
Digital World of Art History 2013: From Theory to Practice
Princeton’s Index of Christian Art, along with the university’s Visual Resources Collection, Department of Art & Archaeology, hosts an annual conference that addresses “high level current methodologies” and offers case studies of public digital archives. These lectures are now available in electronic (pdf) copies and explore topics such as new ways of teaching with images… Read more
-
Timeline of Historical Film Colors
Professor Barbara Flueckiger, Institute of Cinema Studies, University of Zurich, has created a database that traces the development of photographic and cinematic use of color. The database, based on her project Film History Re-mastered, provides descriptions, bibliographies and/or illustrations for each chromatic technology (choose “Show detailed information →” to access detail pages). It is worth… Read more
-
Another nifty craft using old slide technology
We’ve periodically added links to fun things one can make with old slides, e.g. lampshades or curtains. Here’s something else in the crafty home decor department: mirror frames using painted slide carousels. The Red Dot gang can’t wait to get out the spray paint! Read more