If a teenager truly believes he’s the center of the universe, the very core of that world is his bedroom. The bedroom is the teen’s domain, a safe space for self-expression, a place where identities can be explored, constructed, and put on semi-public display.
Last year, the Toronto filmmaker and nascent artist decided, with the help of collaborator Joseph Clement, to meticulously reconstruct Ferris’s bedroom. They scoured Craigslist and Ebay, crowdsourced items that were particularly hard to find, borrowed pieces from project supporters, and recreated materials that proved impossible to track down. Keenlyside and Clement first showed their Bueller bedroom last January at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel during the exhibit “Come Up to My Room.” It’s currently on display at the Virgin Hotel as part of Ferris Fest, a 30th anniversary celebration of FBDO featuring film location tours, screenings, and cast appearances throughout the weekend. From here, Keenlyside will take it to the Niagara Falls Comic Con in June.
Ferris used technology to his advantage in playful ways. He was the hacker, he was the one bucking the system, instead of the system trying to find out every single bit of information about us.
Is the room perfectly to scale? It’s close. We’ve compressed the window. But most of it is to scale. And we know that because of the standard widths of windows, the standard size of posters. We were like, “OK, a standard large-size poster is whatever, a standard door size height is . . .” So it’s kind of scale. But it had to be compressed because this room is too short.
A boy on the edge of manhood. Right, so there are vestiges of childhood. He has a computer, which maybe foreshadows a career in the future. Obviously his dad is some kind of titan of business, the family lives in this fancy house. Ferris is on the cusp of manhood, and that’s why I think the room resonates. It’s a room that’s been considered so deeply. Even the idea of having a red phone—there’s something presidential about it.
Yeah, and people had written blogs about it. Wired did a great article about all of Ferris’s tech. That article was a huge help. I was just really vigilant. Once I got going, I got more and more obsessed. I didn’t really know I had that in me.
