Modelling a cam track for the Silver Swan automaton at Bowes Museum: a cross-disciplinary reflection on ‘what things are’

Abstract This article reports the interdisciplinary conservation investigation of a dynamic object, the Silver Swan, an eighteenth-century automaton presently in the collection of The Bowes Museum, County Durham in England. Taking account of recent proposals for ‘disruptive’ conservation, we reflect on how a conservator’s practice is, necessarily, built on philosophical and, specifically, ontological commitments. In other words, commitments to ideas about what objects ‘are’. As such, the practice of conservation requires interpretation, investigation, analysis and teamwork, as well as the facilitation of dialogue across multiple temporal, social and disciplinary contexts. The article attempts to demonstrate that what the Swan ‘is’ depends on its physical and philosophical environment, and that these conceptualisations in turn provide a context for what a conservator does and also ‘is’. The article concludes with some practical suggestions for how a collaborative dialogue about what things ‘are’ might be initiated.