Projected across time: 150 years of family performance at Rouse Hill House

In the late 1960s, John Terry, then a young man living at Rouse Hill House, composed avant-garde music which he set to abstract projected images, and performed at various locations in Sydney. His work was inspired in part by his childhood fascination with an 1860s magic lantern and magic lantern slides that remained in the family home. John’s revival of the 1860s magic lantern 100 years later illuminates the ways in which the objects at Rouse Hill House could be re-used and reinterpreted by later generations who lived in the house; this in turn informs how Sydney Living Museums presents these objects to visitors. The opportunity to examine the magic lantern within the domestic setting it has occupied for 150 years also makes Rouse Hill House an important site for understanding the use of this early projection technology in Australia.

John Terry’s story, closely knitted with the history of Rouse Hill House, is a case study in the use of domestic objects at the house across generations. The objects still in situ at Rouse Hill House illuminate histories of performance, images, image making and related technology. While it is unlikely that the original objects will ever be performed at Rouse Hill House again, the collection in its digital form can extend the legacy of these museum objects on the site where they have been presented for 150 years.