Rosalind Krauss asserts that "the medium of video Is narcissism," which she equates to a psychological condition of the self present in much of Freud and Lacan's writing on psychoanalysis. Artists place themselves at the centre of the frame, so much so that they become both a vehicle and a reflection for the concepts they attempt to depict with their work; the fluidity and immediacey of the material (or lack thereof) of video leaves nothing else. The Dismantling of text in Richard Serra's Boomerang, and the self-encapsulation of Vito Acconci's Centers and Air Time are cited as examples. Krauss also suggests that this narcissistic approach reveals a temporal collapse between an action performed and its presence on the monitor, as seen in Bruce Nauman's Revolving Upside Down and Lynda Benglis' Now.

Furthermore, Kraus addresses the distinction between Modernist ideas in painting and sculpture as one of reflection vs reflexiveness. Painting sets about creating an imbalance between its subject (Jasper John's American Flag, for example) and object (a flat, painted surface), whereas video seems locked in its illusory world in a sort of feedback loop, in which "video's real medium is a psychological situation, the very terms of which are to withdraw attention from an external object-an Other-and invest it in the Self."

Kraus Concludes by making three concessions to the narcissistic qualities of video: those that criticize the medium by exploiting it, ones that physically assault the video mechanism, and installation video, which she equates to painting or sculpture.