I don’t think it’s possible to touch people’s imagination today by aesthetic means.

Ballard is arguing that, in contemporary culture, “pure” aesthetic appeal—beauty, style, formal innovation—no longer reliably grips the public imagination. The modern sensorium is saturated by advertising, mass media, and real-world spectacle, so art that relies on traditional aesthetic strategies can feel muted or easily absorbed as just another image. Implicitly, he suggests that writers and artists must work through other registers—shock, conceptual provocation, psychological or social extremity, the language of media and technology—to reach readers. The remark aligns with Ballard’s broader preoccupation with how late-20th-century environments (consumerism, violence, mediated reality) reshape desire and perception, demanding new artistic tactics.