Picture Yourself
at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh

Brendan O'Neill

I may only have been in Edinburgh for two weeks, but already my portrait is hanging in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Well, it was. For about a minute. It will since have been replaced by hundreds of other portraits of 'ordinary people' who have taken part in the gallery's Picture Yourself initiative and 'rubbed shoulders with the great and the good'. The idea is simple - you enter a room where there are six portraits of some of Scotland's most famous sons and daughters and, in the middle of them all, one blank video screen surrounded by an exquisite gold frame to make it look like a painting. You sit in a chair, put a pound coin in the slot, activate a camera with a foot-pedal, and hey presto, a video capture of your face appears on the blank video screen. You are, for one moment, a 'Great Scot', up there with some of the country's most important historic figures.

You then collect a printed photograph of the wall, showing your portrait in between Mary Queen of Scots and Robert Burns, and stick it to a specially designated wall with a drawing pin. Forget stuffy portrait galleries which only have pictures of Kings, Queens, prime ministers and ponces. At the Scottish National Portrait Gallery anyone can hang their portrait - as the catchy publicity poster says, 'Public hanging is back.'

The gallery describes Picture Yourself as 'an interactive video project for the new millennium', and sees it as central to its year 2000 aim of 'celebrating the heroism of everyday life'. The idea is to move away from focusing on the elite and instead to celebrate the 'worth' of every one of us. This might sound egalitarian, but I found the whole thing demeaning. The experience of having your 'portrait' done is akin to sitting in a photo booth at a train station - except here, there is no privacy. A queue of people behind you giggle as you take the chair and try to look dignified for your moment of 'greatness'.

The wall of 'ordinary people' that you then attach your 'portrait' to is nothing like the other walls in the gallery. This wall has about 300 photos crudely stuck to it with drawing pins, looking more like a desperate scramble for attention than a dignified portrait exhibition that might capture something about its subjects. By contrast, the portraits in the rest of the gallery are detailed studies of their subjects hanging in a space that allows people to appreciate and admire them. The 'wall of ordinary people' only induced laughter, as gallery attendees gawked at the funny faces that people had pulled or the look of shock on some old woman's face as the camera flashed.

The gallery might intend to 'celebrate' ordinary people, but in fact it reminds us of our inferiority, that our portraits don't really belong in the gallery at all. I thought the point of a National Portrait Gallery was to house portraits of the men and women who have made an impact on society: the scientists, sports stars, actors, politicians, writers, singers, statesmen, artists, soldiers who had in some way left their mark on the world. I certainly do hope that my portrait makes it into a national gallery one day, but as a result of merit, not charity.