Station to Station

Station to Station

The ArtStation and AI protest, 2 years later.

The digital art platform Artstation was launched in 2014. 

It’s stated goal is “to empower artists so they can be independent and successful.” 

In 2021 Epic games purchased Artstation which many digital artists were using as their showcase gallery to seek employment within the games and media industries.  

In December 2022 anti-AI art campaigners organised and spammed Artstation with the now famous No-AI logo in a protest against ‘stealing other peoples art’. Unfortunately for the protestors the No-AI logo itself is copyrighted material since 2007. Effectively the protestors have collectively stolen a piece of original design by replicating it identically and spamming Artstation and other platforms with it to make their statement. Individual members of the anti-AI movement decided that it was worth taking the risk of hypocrisy and legal theft by seizing private goods for the greater good of the protest. 

Fortunately for the protestors the owner of the infringed copyrighted No-AI logo has a sense of humour and understands how using art in this way has a historical precedent and is necessary for cultural reform. That this awareness goes beyond personal prejudices and opinions regardless of any legal situation during any given generation. The extent to understanding and appreciation of the power and value of not censoring art is evident in the education the copyright owner of the No-AI image provides for his own child. This is evidenced by having taken the child to the Art And Protest exhibition in the nations capitol, an exhibition which featured zero digital art. It did have a Banksy. 

The visit to the national gallery occurred simultaneously to an actual protest occurring between the trainstation, government headquarters and BBC headquarters. Although that particular protest was against the government endorsed syllabus of promoting and normalising pedophilia in state schools, not directly about art until some of the images and accompanying text printed in the schoolbooks are called into question. That is entirely another matter to the T&C of Artstation which prohibits such content but does not prohibit imagery generated by an AI. 

Artstation resolved the conflict by installing a ‘see AI content yes/no’ toggle on their website which is widely regarded as a form of commonsense compromise, an easy solution. While the platform did continue to come under criticism by the most hate driven of the protestors for not outright banning AI within their domain altogether, it did satisfy most people that AI content should be labelled as such, the onus for doing so reliant on the platform user, the uploader of the imagery which benefits Artstation by exonerating them from any involvement with third party misuse of the platform. Likewise, the artists retain full copyright of any work uploaded to Artstation. 

In 2024 I discovered Artstation Magazine website which is in addition to and a separate platform than Artstation. It is also owned by Epic games. The copyright on Artstation Magazine website says 2024. I have been unable to determine if it existed prior to this as the information ‘when did art station magazine start?' is not available on google so far as I have been able to ascertain. 

It features four main categories; 

Develop Art Skills. Career Opportunities. Discover inspiration (triple-A games showcase). Industry News. 

There is not an AI thing in sight. Artstation Magazine seems entirely devoted to ‘digital art pre-AI’ which means they are doing a lot to keep people in employment with skills which developed in the 25 years since the Millennium Y2K and which hardly much existed before then to the contemporary accepted standard, certainly not in the practicality of the style-houses which have emerged since the dawn of high-resolution digital art.  

My generation of art training came from artists who lived and trained before computers. I was trained in the traditional art techniques from the academy allegedly founded by Da Vinci. At the time there was no differentiation between 'machines which replace the painting-with-real-paint with buttons and a mouse or graphics tablets', and 'machines which replace the painting-with-real-paint with using buttons and text prompts'. It was all considered computer art, put in the same box. It is not 'painting' if no actual paint is involved. 

It is digital art. None of it is ‘real art’ to the understanding of the last living generation of real artists who determined collectively that computer art will be the death of traditional art skills. This is comparable in the same way graphic-tablet-and-mouse digital artists have determined that text-prompt digital artists will be the death of art or more specifically of their income stream. Which as time has showed, if the short space of two years is sufficient to measure it by, was incorrect. It was nothing more than panic-based fear-mongering and targeted hatred. 

When I look at platforms such as Artstation and see no evidence at all of any actual paint or charcoal, nor the skills required to create what continues to be described by the majority as ‘real art’, I wonder at the intensity by which digital artists employed by a thriving industry have in defending their own generations unique method of creating visual imagery against all others, past and future.