The tl_xls research and design-studies are hosted by an interdisciplinary and international network. Aiming to establish sustainable development on severall locations, a series of projects are featured as evaluable content and input to the discussion on Networking as a cultural discipline. The tl_xls projects are engaging in direct exchange in telematic and global cultures, from a perspective of changing circumstances and workflows of participation in shared resource development. Dedicated to reduce digital gaps, these projects are researching learning, cultural exchange, new media and networking through mobile interfaces, tools and an online-databases, whereas the demonstration and evaluation new models for crosscultural exchange is in focus.

In networked environments it seems that they are neither individualistic nor collective agencies, but rather connective ones. Whereas the collective is ideally characterised by an intentional and empathetic relation between agents within an assemblage, the connective rests on any kind of machinic relation and is therefore more versatile, more open, and based on the heterogeneity of its components or members.

The challenge in computer-based design today is to understand not only the new topologies of form and of presence, but to tackle the problems of agency and events in connective translocal environments. This public spheres will only come into being if there are complex forms of interaction, of participation and learning, that fully exploit the technical possibilities of the networks and that allow for new and creative forms of becoming present, becoming visible, becoming active, in short, of becoming-public.