[BERLIN – LEFT-ALTERNATIVE SCENE] Tuwat: Spektakel in Bärlin ab 25.8. Leaflet for the "Tuwat" congress.

Berlin: self-published, 1981. Quarto (29.5 × 21 cm). Single leaf, printed recto and verso. With Illustration. Slightly stained; else good or better. Item #54213

The TUWAT congress ("tuwat" colloquially stands for the call to do something) followed three years after the TUNIX congress ("tunix" colloquially stands for the call to do nothing). TUNIX is considered the founding event of the alternative left, which was also constituted as a result of the so-called "German Autumn" in order to emerge from the ideological Marxist hardening and leftist terror of the RAF. Among the outstanding participants were Michel Foucault and Jean-Luc Godard. Three years later, the situation within the left was different. The Green Party had been founded. The protest against nuclear power had taken hold of broad circles of society, and the planned demolition of many turn-of-the-century apartment buildings led to a steadily growing squatter movement. Out of this climate came the TUWAT Congress, which in turn repositioned itself on the question of violence. The organized terrorism of the RAF continued to be rejected as dogmatic, but at the same time violence was advocated at demonstrations against nuclear power plants or in resistance to police evacuations of squatters' houses. The self-image was one of individual struggles of certain groups, who were no longer concerned with the enforcement of a concrete system against the existing one, but with the radical change of certain living conditions. (See: Alexander Sedlmaier, Konsum und Gewalt. Radikaler Protest in der Bundesrepublik, Berlin 2018.) The specific occasion of the congress was an announcement by the police about evicting nine occupied houses. In this flyer, the Cold War and the nuclear weapons policy as well as the construction of nuclear power plants are discussed. There is an appeal to advertise the congress, for example by creating your own posters, flyers, and wall paintings.

As part of the four-week congress, the Hamburg computer hacker Wau Holland organized a conference in the left-wing alternative daily TAZ, from which the "Chaos Computer Club" eventually emerged. The aim was to bring together the avant-garde of young computer enthusiasts who were active beyond the mainframe. Even then, the topics were state surveillance via computer technology, the networking of computers via telephone cables and the technology of teletext (Internet), data security and copyright. (See: Katrin Ganz, Die Netzbewegung, Opladen, Berlin, Toronto 2018, p. 27.) As early as 1980, the Hamburg punk band "Abwärts" published a piece entitled "Computerstaat" (Computer State).

As of February 2024, OCLC lists only one copy worldwide, in North America.

Price: €250.00

other currencies