In this Voices.Earth podcast interview, we speak, with Edward Platero, a multidisciplinary artist and creator of TheJoshuaTree.Earth, a project that digitally preserves the location of the iconic album cover of U2’s classic record, The Joshua Tree.
“Desert sky. Dream beneath the desert sky. The river runs but soon runs dry. We need new dreams tonight.” These timeless lyrics come from the U2 classic song “In God’s Country” from the 1987 masterpiece “The Joshua Tree.”
These song lyrics are very appropriate for Edward Platero, a cinematographer and multidisciplinary artist, when it comes to his passion project called TheJoshuaTree.Earth. The dream beneath the desert sky is to preserve the location iconic location U2’s album cover of The Joshua Tree.
“The river runs but soon runs dry,” lyric completely nails what is happening at this site. Over the past several years, people have vandalized the location and have even sawed offer portions of the actual Joshua Tree, which now lays on the ground.
By using innovative technologies like photogrammetry, Edward is developing a 3D re-creation of the location. In January 2020, he visited the historic site and took 3,937 photographs of the tree and its surroundings in order to construct a perfect 3D model recreation.
Here’s the teaser video about this important project:
To get a full perspective on the location, check out this comprehensive YouTube playlist of more than 100 videos dating back to 2013.
You can also view a 3D model of the location here:
Edward chose to use a .Earth domain because his project is preserving an iconic location on our planet.
“I felt that using the .Earth domain really cemented that this is a preservation project,” said Edward. “We are trying to preserve this one kilometer square patch of desert on the earth, and that’s it. The domain helps to ground this into being a preservation project, and not a commercial project.”
In the future, Edward plans on presenting the project to the band, and will be developing an immersive mobile app that shows anyone what it’s actually like at the location – with data overlays that share additional information. He also has plans for doing similar projects for other iconic album locations.
If you are doing similar popular culture location preservation projects, please consider using a .Earth domain for showcasing your efforts. In addition, be sure to take advantage of special Earth Day 2022 pricing promotion, where you can purchase a .Earth domain name starting at under $10.00 USD until June 31, 2022. Learn more here.
