Thus equipped, he could find that in a Kansas City vista "shots of light glance off the glass windows of skyscrapers, electrons and quanta firing past us like an invisible hail of bullets".
It's a day that had been 10 years coming, the length of time he wrestled with the raw material of an artist's emblematic youth, wandering from dark into shots of light and back into shadow, finally to emerge into sunshine of his own manufacture.
And Surrealism naturally had its impact: his shots of light-bleached plazas and factory walls are pure De Chirico.
It sure does give us pure energy: plenty of dreamy nature shots, cascades of light, and twirling ropes build up to a crescendo of spinning bolts and twirling leaves.
The limestone-and-marble facade blends into the neighborhood, but the interior is modern, with shots of gold lighting that recall the light on the city's church domes, like the cupola of St . Isaacs Cathedral across the street.
Six months passed, and we learned that he had abandoned water-skiing for snow skiing; he was working at a ski resort in the Rockies, and sent photos, panoramic shots of the light mirroring brilliantly off the white snowpack.
Shots of these light sculptures in action are accompanied by timelapse shots of the bustling city and industrial parks.
By the time of "Vanda's Room," three years later, the jackhammers and backhoes of urban renewal can be heard gnawing away off screen, and the visual design turns to dark interiors illuminated by dramatic shafts of light, shot by Mr. Costa himself, operating a digital video camera.
The shots of stadium lights gleaming off the players' helmets, backed by the staccato voice of Howard Cosell, made even humdrum matchups seem like once-in-a-lifetime epics.
The music video, which he referred to as the loosely autobiographical story of his move to Germany, where he made part of this record, cuts in and out of shots of dimly lit classic cars zipping around foreboding streets.
The microscope takes a picture of these glowing tags, then fires another shot of laser light.
