In 1971 Beck became acquainted with a German translater in a pub of Southampton harbour. This Mr. Himmel („Sky“ or "Heaven") planed to board the Bremen for her final transatlantic voyage the next day. Beck just had come back from New York, where he had studied Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie, by plane. They talked a little bit about travelling, and a lot about translating processes. In this context Himmel reported on his prior ship passage, especially a railing talk with somebody who worked on popularizing the ASCII-code at Ferranti, a computer company based in a former locomotive factory in Manchester. Beck, as an engineer, was fascinated by that Mr. Ross’ vision to make different computers communicate with each other, and by the idea of a language based on numbers.
In 1988 Beck purchased an ATARI 1040 computer, with which he at first hoped to find new sculpture forms. And at New Year's Eve, he fetched No.25 back from the museum, in order to construct an improved version. Some months later, unsatisfied with the results, he started some basic programming instead. While translating real lines into basic command lines, he remembered Himmel. Arround 1996 he turned the process upside down: he translated text into form. His tool was the ASCII code, and he started signing his rectangular dreams with „66-101-99-107“.
In July he decided that the modernism of No.25 was too much old school, and brought it as a present to Himmel, who lived in Albufeira, Portugal, together with 2 dogs and 6 or 7 cats. But the cats ruined the sculpture within 28 hours, starting with the black tape. Himmel, who had translated several detective stories by Enid Blyton, was inconsolable and promised to dedicate his next book to Beck. Together they made up its title: „The secret seven and the missing sculpture“ – the plot was approximately as follows:
In 1971 Beck became acquainted with a German translater in a pub of Southampton harbour. This Mr. Himmel („sky“ or "heaven") planed to board the Bremen for her final transatlantic voyage the next day. Beck just had come back from New York, where he had studied Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie, by plane. They talked a little bit about travelling, and a lot about translating processes. In this context Himmel reported on his prior ship passage, especially a railing talk with somebody who worked on popularizing the ASCII-code at Ferranti, a computer company based in a former locomotive factory in Manchester. Beck, as an engineer, was fascinated by that Mr. Ross’ vision to make different computers communicate with each other, and by the idea of a language based on numbers.
Concerning heaven: see Kindler and Riemann