It is the artist´s imagination that makes something possible. There is the marriage between the artist´s imagination and engineering imagination. Fine art is the penultimate of the intellectual mind, of the creative spirit. It is the driving force. And art is always the predictor of the future.
Recently, I have watched a very good documentary on Leonardo Da Vinci. I think, he is the perfect example of what the imagination is capable of in the moment versus what is possible technically in the moment. He was obsessed with flying. He was very into and worked very closely with nature. He sketched the flow of water, the flight paths of birds, what would happen to rocks over time etc. But his technical ability was not quite at the point to produce a true flying machine at the time. His early attempts were based on wing patterns inspired by birds and bats. It took an additional 500 years for human beings to actually produce and engineer something that could achieve the goal of the imagination. Art being the ultimate inspiration means that our imaginations can fly and move to locations and ideas and possibilities that take our material and technical progress time to catch up with. Everyone who designs products or makes something for markets has to additionally take into consideration topics such as practicability, affordability of course. Even when I think about literature, science fictions writers for instance. Our engineers and designers will eventually catch up with their ideas and imaginations.
You cannot have the answer to something if you do not ask the question. It is the artists who are at the forefront of creation.
