automaton

The success of “Maybe Happy Ending” hinges in no small part on the miraculous performance of Darren Criss, who plays an automaton with a secretly sensitive heart.

Campione has become known for her unique specialism in dolls, doll houses, automata, birdcages and corkscrews.

But in the 18th and 19th centuries, the automaton — an intricate mechanical device that could take the form of a preening silver swan or an organ-playing doll — was a popular source of entertainment and wonder.

There, in the Morris Museum’s collection of mechanical musical instruments and automata, is a music box from around 1877.

But by the time Descartes catalyzed the Enlightenment in the 17th century, he had reduced other animals to mere automatons, tainting centuries of science with the assumption that anything unlike us is inherently inferior.