About the author
Author, historian and artist whose work follows machines, myth and the evidence history leaves behind.
A multidisciplinary practice
Nicholas Costa is a British author, historian and artist recognised for research into the history of coin-operated machines and ancient history. A graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, he has built a career that connects academic research with artistic practice.
Costa is best known for definitive accounts of coin machines, from ancient inventions to the precursors of modern computing. His work also ranges across ancient civilisations and archaeological mysteries, including Atlantis, the Amazons, and the Birth of Athene and Searching for Joanna.
Research archive
Costa's extensive collection of marketing materials, photographs and artefacts from the coin-machine industry was donated to Canterbury Christ Church University. It continues there as a primary research resource.
Film collection
Experimental films made in the late 1960s and early 1970s are preserved by the BFI National Archive in the United Kingdom.
Education
Costa's visual training at the Royal College of Art informs the multidisciplinary approach that runs through his writing, research and artistic work.
Discovery
He is credited with discovering the site of a previously unknown Crusader castle in western Cyprus, extending his historical work beyond the page and into the landscape itself.
Published by D’Aleman