X

DVDs turn digital TVs into arty decor

Leslie Katz Former Culture Editor
Leslie Katz led a team that explored the intersection of tech and culture, plus all manner of awe-inspiring science, from space to AI and archaeology. When she's not smithing words, she's probably playing online word games, tending to her garden or referring to herself in the third person.
Credentials
  • Third place film critic, 2021 LA Press Club National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards
See full bio
Leslie Katz

Consumers who are smitten with their fancy flat-panel televisions might consider those gadgets to be works of art. Plasma Window DVDs take the TV-as-art concept a step further by playing artistic images through the set, thus turning it, in effect, into a rotating gallery.

Plasma Window
Credit: Plasma Window

Past Plasma Window DVDs have cycled through modern-art works, nature scenes and aquarium musings. A new volume features Impressionist paintings by Degas, Cezanne, Monet, Van Gogh and others--set, fittingly, to a backdrop of classical music. For those who have yet to tire of , another recent Plasma Window offering plays a montage by the Italian Renaissance painter. These newer DVDs, which sell for $22.95, are optimized for wide-screen displays, but work on all TVs.

As the blog Funfurde points out, projecting masterworks in the living room might not suit everyday life, but "it might be nice during a party, and it will keep your boorish guests from trying to turn on the 'big game' that day."