Your monitor would need an HDMI connection to hook it to AppleTV. AppleTV would need to be on the same network as the IMac, presumably wireless if you don't want to run cables.
You would then need to use Airplay Mirroring, and that requires reasonably modern Macs, see:
About AirPlay Mirroring in OS X
I don't know for certain but if you set up an automatic powerpoint slideshow you could probably export to an AppleTV compatible movie files, and then play that to AppleTV via iTunes as well, which ought to work with older Macs but video might need to be set to loop or repeat itself a lot.
If you want to use Airplay Mirroring buthave an old Mac, then AirParrot software has a demo, and some people find this ok.