STYLE DESK

A New, Spacey Look For MTV

By NEIL STRAUSS (NYT) 790 words

The video, for the Aphex Twin song ''On,'' seemed strangely positioned among the guitar-driven, misery-laden bands of ''120 Minutes.'' But MTV had nowhere else to put it. And for the next few years, nothing like it was seen on MTV again.

But now techno, still a relatively underground phenomenon in America, has returned to MTV. For the past month, the network has been testing the music and its distinct approach to videos on a late-night show called ''Amp.'' The hourlong show, which runs on Fridays at 2 A.M. and Saturdays at 1 A.M., has a following of more than 400,000 viewers, which Judy McGrath, president of MTV, says is about ''350,000 more than are usually watching.''

Todd Mueller, who created and produces ''Amp,'' persuaded his employers to take a chance on something new. ''He had his finger on the pulse of something,'' Ms. McGrath said. ''It was part of the whole idea here that we wanted to do some fresh things because MTV looks stale.''

Notable for its absence of veejays, ''Amp'' offers a kaleidoscope of computer animation, experimental photography and minimalism that looks more like the offerings of an underground film festival than those of a music network. Like the handiwork of a club disk jockey, many of the videos -- some as long as 12 minutes -- are blended together, fading into one another on similar images or sounds. ''Amp'' features a mix of new artists as well as a few electronic pioneers like Kraftwerk and Paul Haslinger, formerly of Tangerine Dream.

''The show is much more visually intensive than the normal MTV program,'' said Adam Shore of TVT Records, which previously had no outlet for videos by its electronic bands, including Autechre and Underworld. ''I like that it is less interested in the trendiness of the genre and more interested in the quality of the visuals and what the visuals can bring out in the music. Doesn't the voice-over at the beginning of the show say, 'Music as art'?''

More than any previous video genre, the art of the mostly instrumental dance songs on ''Amp'' is as much in the image as in the music. Because the music is electronic, it lends itself to computer animation; no story line is suggested by lyrics, and the musicians, who tend to stay behind the scenes, do not insist on being in their own videos. So, directors have a free hand to interpret the music. And because electronic-music videos are a developing art form, there are no rules, codes or dogmas.

''A conventional video shows a singer strutting around doing his business,'' said Nick Philip, who directed the computer-morphing video for Sun Electric's ''Meccano,'' an ''Amp'' favorite. ''Making techno is not really that photogenic. Generally, it looks like old people eating food. It's very boring. So because the music is more anonymous and faceless, you get to base the videos more around a visual concept or an idea or emotion a track evokes.''

In many cases, the directors are the artists themselves. The members of Underworld, whose frenetic ''Born Slippy'' was in the film ''Trainspotting,'' also belong to the cutting-edge English design collective Tomato and create their own album art and videos. A member of Future Sound of London, one of the genre's most respected acts, just handles visuals. On its ultra-stylized ''My Kingdom'' video, as atmospheric music broods and pulses like a suspense-film soundtrack, computer-animated blobs and creatures ominously float toward various London monuments and into the lives of shady characters.

''Synesthesia is something we think about a lot during the show,'' Mr. Mueller said. ''There is something that happens when you hear a sound and see a visual, and they work beautifully together. It sends a tingle down your back.''

CAPTIONS: Photo: A video shown on ''Amp'': ''World Without Rules'' by Paul Haslinger. (MTV)