Aphex Twin - On

What this video is

Released in November 1993, 'On' appeared at the peak of Warp Records' Artificial Intelligence series, which positioned electronic music as serious listening art rather than functional dancefloor product. The video embodies this ethos: shot on a remote UK tidal island with no human performers, using stop-motion and found objects, it refuses the conventions of performance or narrative clips entirely. Its creation as…

Why it matters

A landmark in IDM music video aesthetics, 'On' established a visual grammar of abstraction, craft-based surrealism, and deliberate anti-spectacle that anticipated later Warp video work. Its stop-motion beach assemblage prefigures the label's commitment to concept-first, budget-agnostic filmmaking…

The director

Jarvis Cocker (born 19 September 1963, Sheffield) is an English musician, frontman of Pulp, and graduate of Central Saint Martins. Alongside longtime collaborator Martin Wallace, he directed several early 1990s music videos for Warp Records prior to Pulp's…