Cartes et lignes d'erre: Deligny's Maps of Autistic Children's Movements

A new book by Sandra Alvarez de Toledo, 'Cartes et lignes d'erre', published by L'Arachnéen, compiles previously unpublished maps from experiments led by educator Fernand Deligny and his network of 'présences proches' in the Cévennes from 1969 onward. The maps trace the movements of autistic children within a 'milieu de vie' of camps designed as sensory reference systems. The book presents these maps alongside their tracings of 'lignes d'erre' and 'chevêtres' (nodes), with descriptions by Deligny's companions, aiming to contextualize documents often misunderstood. Some believed the maps were made by the children themselves; formal analogies to Paul Klee or Henri Michaux, and their display at the 2012 São Paulo Biennial and Palais de Tokyo, deepened the ambiguity. The work emphasizes the cartography as a manifesto with an enigmatic core, cautioning against aestheticization that fuels mythologization of Deligny and interpretations by Deleuze and Guattari. The book reveals behavioral intersection points between children and adults.