This interactive digital exhibition, released on CD-ROM, promised a wild multimedia ride through five decades of Australian rock music. Vibrant and experimental, Real Wild Child! captures a point in time when the approach to adapting, presenting and sharing audiovisual materials was evolving.

From 1994–95, the Powerhouse Museum staged the original iteration of the exhibit, which charted the history of Australian rock music from the 1950s until the (then) present. Artist and musician Reg Mombassa was commissioned to create artwork for the exhibit, used both in promotional material and the design of the displays.

Real Wild Child! was based largely around recorded music and other forms of audiovisual media, making it ideal for the opportunities presented by computer software. The CD-ROM program replicated the structure of the physical exhibition, dividing a 40-year time span into seven periods, each represented by a symbolic location. For example, the period 1978 to 1983 is located in a pub to reflect the peak of pub rock. Mombassa's artwork is adapted to this cyber-universe: his renderings of an angel, a telephone box and a chicken represent icons for the Help Screen, Index and Main Menu.

The CD-ROM demonstrates the possibilities and limits of computer software in the 1990s. Early software was slow to launch, its interactive features were basic, and the main menu only allowed for left-right scroll (there is no movement at all on the other pages). However, the program demonstrates that collecting institutions were alert to the transformative potential of digital technology.

Significantly, the program showed how cultural collections could further open to the public, many of whom would otherwise have no access – a format that continued to expand in the following decades.