well in the coming year humanities visual aesthetics will be yet again put on display in that great gallery in the sky, space. two pieces of human artistic bric-a-brac are en route to mars as you read this. one, dubbed the first artwork on another planet, is damien hirst’s target painting aboard britian’s beagle2. the other, which is not nearly as presumptuous in it’s claims, but certainly related is bill nye’s sundial aboard two of nasa’s mars exploration rovers. as diminutive as they are i like these things, i like the idea of them, but in aesthetic terms i’m not sure weather we have really improved upon the venerable voyager’s gold record, or the pioneer 10’s plaque. maybe it’s like all the space art critics say, space painting is dead.