Art for a good cause: Audi facilitates $860,000 donation to UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe

Every day, the barrage of harrowing news from the war in Ukraine continues. In recent months, Audi has already launched numerous aid campaigns. By auctioning off a digital work of art at its OMR pavilion, Audi is making a donation to aid Ukrainian refugees.

At the OMR (Online Marketing Rockstars) Festival in Hamburg, the digital and online scene’s largest trade fair, on May 17 and 18, Audi turned its pavilion into a stage for a digital art campaign to benefit people in Ukraine. Artists Ferdi Alici and Eylul Alici of digital art pioneer Ouchhh studio used the Audi pavilion as a design space for their digital artwork “Unseen Universe”. The campaign put people at the center: Chips in the wristbands of the visitors let the data from their movements, interactions, and experiences flow into the digital artwork. Created in real time using artificial intelligence, Ouchhh studio’s digital artwork was constantly evolving through the live data input of the visitors.

The digital artwork “Unseen Universe” was auctioned after the festival as 7,000 NFTs (non-fungible tokens), generating a value of more than $860,000 (as of June 8, 2022). Proceeds from the campaign might continue to rise because each time an “Unseen Universe” NFT is resold, ten percent of the price will be donated to UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe e.V. for the benefit of Ukraine. “The entire UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe team is very grateful for this extraordinary support from AUDI AG and its partners. By offering support for refugees, this creative and passionate project is opening up many opportunities for lives affected by the war,” said Peter Ruhenstroth-Bauer, Managing Director of UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe.

Philipp Noack, Sales Director for Germany at Audi, is equally proud: “The digital artwork ‘Unseen Universe’ and its auction as NFTs (non-fungible tokens) was a daring attempt at something new. I am very proud of my team in Audi’s Germany Sales and Marketing Devision, who came up with and mounted this innovative campaign for a good cause within a very short time. We are very excited about the levels of interest and participation that the project has triggered, and we are deeply grateful to be able to make a contribution to UNO-Flüchtlingshilfe’s relief efforts for Ukraine.”