- Nick Peterson
Nick Peterson is a British musician and film director, who has recorded under the names Virtual Alien and Old Nick. Peterson was born in
Perth, Scotland , of a Scottish father, and a mother with SwissSephardic Jew ish, Italian and Spanish ancestry. He started his musical career at the age of 14 in 1987.He recorded 12 albums. In 1994 he decided to return to further education. After two years of Dramatic Arts he studied for a BA in English literature then achieved an MA in Multimedia at the London College of Printing in 2000.Since then he has directed seven feature films and documentaries: "The Complete Map of the Universe", "Speed of Light", "Burning from the Inside", "In and Out of Planet Earth", "The Memos", "Digital Broadcast", "Writing on the Wall" and "Speed of Life".
His most notable albums are "V.A. Presents Old Nick" released in 1987, "War of Love" in 1988 and "King of the World" in 1992. If the first two albums were very much imbued of the techno pop music of the time, King of the World was a stark departure in the rock-grunge indie genre. The title track was written by
Nile Rodgers andBernard Edwards .The video and the single came out in 1990. The video was banned by MTV for featuring images of war and violent sports at the beginning of the first Gulf war.
The single "War of Love" released in 1988 and sold 4M copies.fact|date=August 2008 The song has been adapted into 12 different versions, one dance, one instrumental, one sung in French, in German, in Italian, in Hebrew and there was even a duet done in Spanish and one under his occasional persona as "Old Nick".
The same year Virtual Alien covered
David Bowie 's "Fascination".His films include "The Complete map of the Universe" starring Mark Joseph, a two-hour epic about twelve contestants locked up in the dark in a TV show; "Speed of Light", a thriller starring Stuart Mansell featuring a rape scene that needed to be edited several times in order to satisfy the censor in both the UK and the US; and "Burning from the Inside" a feature length documentary on the
Ijaw , an ethnic people ofNigeria . The film was conceived with Oronto Douglas, the Nigerian human right lawyer, and Sokari Ekine the human rights campaigner. "Digital Broadcast" is a documentary with the American broadcasterPaul Gambaccini .In 1999, along with the Cornish mathematician Tom Norwood, he launched the Y2KDiary.com, a precursor to what is known today as a
social networking site .fact|date=August 2008 By 2001 when the site reached its peak with over two million users, the site turned to several venture capitalists to evolve to what it is today, the DiaryUnlimited.External links
* [http://www.virtualalien.net Virtual Alien]
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