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Tjep.’s Infinite Scroll Brings Six Kinetic Machines to Dutch Design Week 2026
At first glance, six machines scrolling through smartphones might seem an unlikely subject for an art exhibition. Yet this is precisely what Dutch designer Frank Tjepkema has chosen to explore with Infinite Scroll, a new installation by his Amsterdam-based studio, Tjep., which will be presented at Kazerne Design Lab during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven this October.
The work consists of six freestanding machines called Valets, each fitted with a smartphone and a mechanism that moves a stylus across its screen. Made in corten steel, polished stainless steel and brass, the objects perform a gesture most of us repeat throughout the day, often without thinking about it. Here, scrolling is no longer something done discreetly with a thumb while waiting for a message, travelling or passing a few spare minutes. It becomes the central action of an installation, performed repeatedly by machines in a shared space.
Tjepkema has given the six Valets a coordinated sequence of movements that the studio describes as a social dance. They gather, separate and respond to one another before slowing down, although nothing physically connects them. On their screens, an uninterrupted stream of faces continues to change. Every portrait is AI-generated, depicting people who do not exist, from imagined street encounters to models and faces altered by cosmetic procedures. The images never repeat in the same combinations, and occasionally a face appears with something subtly wrong.
The choice of imagery gives Infinite Scroll a particular relevance at a time when digital platforms are saturated with photographs, carefully constructed identities and increasingly convincing artificial images. The faces are familiar in appearance but have no real lives behind them. Meanwhile, the machines continue their repetitive movements, giving physical form to the endless act of looking and moving on.
The installation is part of a larger celebration marking 25 years of Tjep., the multidisciplinary design studio founded by Tjepkema in 2001. Working across jewellery, furniture, products, interiors, public spaces and architecture, the studio has built a practice that moves between functional objects and more provocative gallery works. With Infinite Scroll, engineering and sculpture come together in an object that performs a task while inviting questions about the habit it reproduces.
The Valets are designed to do more than scroll through a feed. They can also function as clocks, advancing one minute with each swipe, or display fields of colour, glitches, a slowly turning still life, a photo album or a mirror that moves through images from the past. Their construction is equally important to the project, with three material finishes giving the machines distinct physical identities. Tjep. is releasing them as a signed and numbered limited edition, with eight pieces per material and two artist's proofs.
For visitors to Dutch Design Week, the installation offers an encounter with a familiar part of contemporary life presented in an unfamiliar form. Rather than placing another screen in front of the viewer, Infinite Scroll makes the mechanism behind the scrolling visible, drawing attention to a movement that usually passes unnoticed.
The exhibition will be held at Kazerne Design Lab, a venue that brings design, culture and hospitality together in Eindhoven. Dutch Design Week runs from 17 to 25 October 2026, and a meet-the-designer session with Tjepkema is scheduled for 24 October.
Exhibition details
Work: Infinite Scroll by Tjep.
Venue: Kazerne Design Lab, Paradijslaan 2–8, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Dates: 17–25 October 2026
Exhibition hours: 11 a.m.–6 p.m. and by appointment
Meet the designer: 24 October, 3–5 p.m.
Studio: Tjep.
Venue: Kazerne Design Lab
