The Wallpaper on my TV

Monday is about movies, and sometimes TV. Today, “Slow TV” and the way I use my TV when I’m ‘not’ watching it…

I’ll sometimes put some “Slow TV” on in the background. The 9.5 hour train ride to the Norwegian Arctic Circle in winter remains a favourite:

I‘ll put it on, mute it, and play Tori Amos, or Underworld, or The Necks, or Wayne Shorter, or Kraftwerk, or, you know, whatever…

I like the long train-ride videos, and also drone footage, or beach scenes, even some bush walks.

This Canadian forest hike is another favourite, it has nature sounds included, so I might leave those on, but I’ll still pair it up with Bill Withers, or Rufus Wainwright or Lisa Gerrard or whatever, do some writing with this on in the background.

Do you ever use your TV screen for wallpaper? I love it. Big fan. It started with those virtual fireplace vids I guess:

You can have the crackle of the ‘real’ fire in the room on a winter’s night — and none of the mess! Again, I’d have some John Coltrane or Dorothy Ashby or Pink Floyd playing.

And from there I got into finding all manner of “Slow TV” gems, from the canal journey —

— to the snowfall walk in Finland —

— to the Japanese nature scenery:

Some, like that one above, have their own soundtrack of ambient/chill music. And sometimes that’s nice too, but usually I would mute it and choose my own score.

And this isn’t (just) because I’m addicted to TV, it just started out as a bit of fun. And then became a habit in the work-from-home daze of Covid and beyond. Sometimes when I work from home I’ll sit in here and put something long on the screen and within minutes I’m not even noticing it but it’s part of the room. Of course there are times when the screen is off and there’s just music on, or maybe there’s no noise at all (rare, but it happens).

This morning, I’m up and watching the Andre 3000 film:

It’s basically his ambient flute album played through, with the artist curling up by candlelight and listening to the work. It’s really just a new way to hear (and see) the album, and maybe to understand its intentions a little better. I really love this record, I play it often first thing in the morning, but I’d never seen the visual representation. So that’s a bit of fun.

And it got me wondering if anyone else out there likes to use the TV for wallpaper, rather than just having it on to watch a program or movie, and then off when it is not being used? Smart TVs these days have the option of displaying actual artwork — we have one of those “Frame” TVs, and could post up Gaugin or Van Gogh or, you know, whatever. Actually, we have one of my pictures on there as the backdrop.

Some shutters from a bedroom in Hawaii from a pre-Covid holiday. A permanent reminder of when the world was different, but also you could absolutely shut it out when you wanted.

Actually, we have that picture on the telly because I wasn’t paying a monthly subscription to display waterlilies or whatever…

But yeah, mostly I do like a bit of wallpaper. I don’t have a fish tank, but YouTube will absolutely allow me to have one whenever I want:

Tremendous fan of boat ride vids too:

Even the vicarious Kiwi roadie gets a look in from time to time:

So, I wondered if any of you have any recommendations for favourite “Slow TV” wallpapers, or maybe you just have a favourite movie you’ll watch on mute? Or anything other than a library stock image. YouTube is obviously the key here, but sometimes SparkSport, or TVNZ+ provides a bit of cricket that’s worthy of just watching in the background with the sound down. As was the case with our trouncing by Sri Lanka (admittedly, it didn’t matter, we’d won the series) on Saturday night…

Netflix has WWE all over it now. About 40 different Wrestlemanias popped up to celebrate the new year, over 30 Summerslams and Survivor Series’ and Royal Rumbles…and we’re getting the new content too, the weekly shows and the big pay-per-view events as they happen, all incorporated in your Netflix fee whether you want it or not. I won’t be watching all of it as it happens any longer, those days are gone, but I retain some special interest in it, for sure. And I’m not gonna lie, I can watch Wrestlemania III with the sound down and still follow every move, still feel completely and utterly caught up in it since it’s an all-time favourite:

But for the most part it’s nature docos, drones, boats, and trains.

I’ll leave you with Bergen to Oslo — for some reason it’s my favourite. The nice surprise of the tunnels, the light to dark, the weird little glimpses into a world where I’ve never been. The readiness of the material, the absolute willingness, to be an experiment for my crude attempt at creating my own music video with the soundtrack of my choice.

And I’ll gratefully accept any suggestions you have for wallpaper/Slow TV, also keen on any feedback around any of the options I’ve provided here.