The 1990s MTV Cartoon With a Surprisingly Modern Take on Surveillance

Perhaps no piece of science fiction relies less on text and linear narrative, and more on visual style and tone, than Peter Chung's Æon Flux--not Karyn Kusama's visually stunning but unfulfillingly straightforward live-action film from 2005, but the 1990s animated series created for MTV's Liquid Television. The series resonates powerfully with our contemporary obsession with, and confusion over, a web of ideas about surveillance, privacy, transparency, spectacle, performative acts, and the ethics and effects of watching and being watched. Decades later, Æon Flux still presents a fresh alternative to black-and-white moralizing about life in a surveillance society. It takes the oppressive power of surveillance seriously, but it's stubbornly playful, unafraid to point out how often we willingly expose ourselves to the all-seeing lens. Chung, a veteran animator known for his work on Rugrats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Transformers, builds an aesthetic that blends Japanese anime, German Expressionism, and cyberpunk.