Rui Ma
Programme:
Architecture - PhD/MPhil/MSc by Research
Mode of study:
Full time
Research title:
Architectural Comedy: The Architectonics of Comedy in Buster Keaton’s Films
Biography
Rui Ma is a young architecture graduate who earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Melbourne. He has acted as a team leader for architecture competitions and was one of the students responsible for inviting local architects to give lectures to the students and the public. He has working experience in architectural design companies and cultural institutions in China. His article on the historical buildings in Melbourne received over 7000 page views in total. He also has experience in architectural filmmaking, interviewing architects, and translating architecture-related journal articles from English and Chinese and vice versa. He also has a wide range of volunteer experiences within the discipline, such as the Open House Melbourne, the Open day of Robin Boyd Foundation, and the Melbourne City Forum.
Early Cinema/ Cinematic Architecture / Visual Comedy / Video Games
This research will closely examine the relationship between comedy and architecture through the lens of cinema. The proposed research aims to identify how architecture and its elements can act as comedy-generator machines by focusing on the oeuvres of silent comedy filmmaker Buster Keaton. The research examines the relationship between the settings, camera placement, and the bodily movement of Keaton’s film characters through analytical drawings and diagrams. The detailed analysis focuses on the role of framing in Buster Keaton’s creation of his visual style. The argument is that Keaton’s framing technique not only directs the audience’s attention through carefully constructed visual compositions but also helps articulate the narrative, allowing him to share his impersonal, mechanized world with the audience. The research outcome could be applied to further discussion of the absurdity in everyday life, body and space relationship and design pedagogy in architecture theories.
Paper publication:
Hamid Amouzad Khalili and Rui Ma, The Architecture of the Video Game Stray (2022): The Feline Quadruped Cyberpunk Player (EAR), 38 (2), pp. 6-31. https://journals.ed.ac.uk/ear/article/view/8958