Penetrating spaces examines how movement is used as a semiotic resource to transform the meaning potential of the installation space Spreading the Love. This transformation underscores the rewriting of the script of rape, a scripted interaction that draws upon, yet also creates, social configurations of sexuality and gender. Being a "script", it can be rewritten, or transformed, by playing socially constructed roles differently. Drawing on performance studies theory and adopting a multimodal, social semiotic and metafunctional approach, we suggest that movement of the participants in relation to the installation and of the performance itself to different venues changes the organizational, interactional, and representational meanings of the installation, and that these changes transform the script of rape. Organizationally, participants move from one location to another so that marginalized voices become central to the destabilization of the script of rape. Interactionally, the dialogic nature of the installation enables members of the public to become the authoritative voice, "rewriting" new scripts that assert ethical relationships. Representationally, we examine how spectators can transform themselves into performers, thereby questioning the conventional participatory roles in the script of rape.

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This article asks which approaches are the most effective when making ‘performances of pain’ – performances that not only represent pain, but also transform it. I bring together three performances of pain from around the world: Backyard Games, which is based on a rape in Israel; Thetha Ngikhulume, which tells stories from victims and perpetrators of apartheid in South Africa; and Fagaala, which represents the genocide in Rwanda. According to critics and even the artists themselves, each performance fails in its quest to transform pain. Rather than transforming pain, critical interpretations of these works show that they either reinforce or undermine painful events. Through examining performances that are considered to have failed, I wish to highlight the factors that make works successful in their transformation of pain. An analysis of the critical interpretations of these works shows that performances of pain are more likely to foster transformation when they foreground the experiences of victims and show these victims as creating an existence beyond pain. In order for performances to transform pain, this pain must not be overlooked, but rather allowed to evolve into hope and triumph.

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