When Malibu-based music manager Jake Hooker and wife Deborah got sick of crowded movie theaters, they bought the biggest TV they could find -- an 82-inch high-definition Mitsubishi -- and turned their living room into a home theater with surround-sound subwoofers that made the floor shake during flicks such as "Gladiator."
Just one problem. Though the big screen looked great as Russell Crowe wrestled a Bengal tiger, when the TV was off they were left with a black hole devouring their living room. "It just looked so menacing," Hooker says.
His solution: the Living Aquarium, a product of a company called Screen Dreams, which distributes mostly nature-inspired DVD screensavers for flat-panel TVs. For $19.99, it fills his blank tube with a simulated aquarium, complete with air-bubble sound effects. Says Hooker, co-writer of the Joan Jett anthem "I Love Rock N' Roll": "It's like having a giant piece of moving art in my living room."
Back when all televisions were fat and frumpy and symbols of an unsophisticated couch-potato society, people hid them away in hulking armoires and bragged about how little they watched (that "Law & Order" habit notwithstanding). But these days? Tubes have slimmed down and sleeked up. Plasmas are taking pride of place above a mantel or otherwise becoming the focal point of the room.
In response, entrepreneurs and designers are creating elaborate frames, screensavers, even artful canvases that scroll up or down depending on whether one wants to see "Desperate Housewives" or a print by Degas. TV as art?
Well, yes, or perhaps just as a medium for a slide show of family photos. Businesses such as Screen Dreams sell other DVD screensavers that fill otherwise blank screens with simulated aquariums, butterfly scenes and faux fireplaces. L.A.-based Colorcalm, which launched in September, is the designer of soothing cloud-and-sky scenes in 36 rainbow hues.
Plasma Window of Los Angeles turns contemporary and traditional paintings into a virtual rotating gallery. Since launching last fall, founder Chris Gordon says the company has seen sales quadruple in Los Angeles and New York, where customers are more "hip to the trend of using their TVs to display art."
One client is Dr. Ron Grusd, a Beverly Hills radiologist who has a TV in every room of his Mediterranean-style home -- 19 total. But he reserves the DVD screensavers for the high-profile rooms: The 60-inch LCD in the den displays works of art, the 50-inch plasma in his office features a soothing waterfall scene, and the TV in the family room looks like a fish tank.
