On the tech90s bbs (www.tech90s.net), Lucy Kimbell (Soda) wrote:

The Bureau's strategy of being at all points in the cycle, or system, in
the production of works (making the work, tech stuff, conceptual, design
and packaging) is an interesting one for other artists to consider. I'd
say the Bureau's work is one of the most complete articulations of this
strategy. British contemporary artists have been struggling along in
this vein for some time, showing work in artist run spaces with some
sort of collective vision or manifesto and a strong sense of context and
site, and often hopping across the line that conventionally marks fine
art from design.

yael responded:

I'm not sure I know which artists lucy has in mind but as for artists
creating a project based on such a model as a business or institution,
I've seen several project of that sort; one was a couple of months ago
at casey kaplan gallery where the model was a lightning company with
complete presentation of the business. Candy Ass is another artist who
creates a kind of store but he is not removed from the work. The store
is about him. About "hopping across the line that conventionally marks
fine art from design." I'm not sure if that is really the story and I
don't think that is what is happening with the bureau. It's more about
functions, objectification and absurds of corporate thinking.

The interesting thing about the bureau and such projects is actually the
removal of the artist ego from the center of the work. The artist is
invisable or part of the function as in the bureau's case the artist is
only the engineer (we're not even mentioning the artist name). In my
case I'm the technical administrator, etc.

Lucy continued the thread:

Some of these artists are new to me, and they remind me of a show called
Bonk Business, out of Finland, coming to London next year, which is a
sort of history and trade show for a non existant company. In my
original post I actually had in mind something more like the artist
groups and artist run spaces such as Bank or Milch in London, or the new
media collectives which include both artists and other practitioners
such as Tomato whose work may take different forms for different
contexts, but actually running as a business the whole time, not just
for an installation. What I think the bureau brings to this way of
working is a much more overt concern with the contextualisation of art
practice and in particular its global economic context. Much more
interesting.