History Main / WhiteVoidRoom

A featureless white room. Think of being inside a gigantic, well-lit ping-pong ball. So featureless, in fact, that you can't even tell where the walls, floor, and ceiling end--they all blend seamlessly together under the uniform light, so the chamber looks more like a white void than a room. Sometimes, the only indication that it's ''not'' a void is the fact that the characters have something solid to stand on.

As [[BlankWhiteVoid literal white voids]] represent some "other realm"--usually a result of a [[DreamSequence dream]] or crossing over to [[AnotherDimension another]] [[AlternateUniverse universe]]--physical rooms that replicate this visual effect will have the same connotations. They make excellent cells for imprisonment or interrogation--the absence of visible exits (or any sign that the outside world exists at all) implies [[SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere no possibility of escape]]. Or, the white can represent sterility, making these rooms suitable for otherworldly hospitalization. Or, it can represent the limitless possibilities of a blank canvas, so this room could be a currently-inactive [[{{Hologram}} holo]][[HardLight simulator]], or some other place where literally anything can happen.

* For a really obscure example: A 1990s Comedy sketch-comedy show called ''Limboland'' was entirely set in one of these.

* The setting of most Apple Computer ads since the introduction of [=OSX=], including the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2-UuIEOcss testimonial-based "Switch" campaign]], the Justin Long-John Hodgeman [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgzbhEc6VVo "Mac vs. [=PC=]" ads]], and more recently the iPhone ads. The notable exception is the iPod ads, which lean more toward the [[DesignStudentsOrgasm opposite extreme]].
* A set of three UsefulNotes/{{PlayStation3}} commercials (one Nightmare Fuel) features a room likely meant to invoke this effect, but it's just a white room. '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqkNPcUMffU This is the Nightmare Fuel one]].'''

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa50J7uEb_w This]] [[http://www.ennuestrasmanos.org/ En Nuestras Manos]] PublicServiceAnnouncement, featuring various [[CelebrityEndorsement celebrities]] in one, proudly showing their pulseras.

* Every comic strip, almost all of the time, due to the ever-shrinking size of the average strip, and artists' inability to fit anything but talking heads into each panel, as referenced in various ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' strips, for instance [[http://i51.tinypic.com/1yo0uh.gif here]]
* ''ComicStrip/TheFamilyCircus:'' The "featureless white void" is commonly seen in this comic, and became a running inside joke on ''Webcomic/DysfunctionalFamilyCircus''. The "featureless white ''room''" is mentioned [[http://dfc.furr.org/archive/224.html here]] as a specific example, "Bil loved the power he wielded over us. He'd coop us up in featureless white rooms for months on end." And "Jeffy desperately tries to stop the scenery rushing in to fill the vacuum of their stark, white home."

* The ''Series/{{Eyewitness}}'' series of science/nature documentaries is set in a kind of MishmashMuseum with animals of all sorts running about. This can be seen in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSNJpoUmJcg its opening sequence ]], where the camera zooms through the museum's bizarre floor plan. The walls also have screens and picture frames depicting various images from the natural world. The museum itself is shown as being like this throughout the documentaries themselves, with video clips being introduced by the camera panning to the screens and picture frames. It also had the added strangeness effect of the pictures depicted being different every time, because they would be related to the subject matter.

* The white background was [[http://goldenageofmusicvideo.com/?p=226 a popular design theme]] among post-punk and {{New Wave|Music}} musicians in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in keeping with the [[ThreeChordsAndTheTruth stripped-back sensibility]] that these genres developed from.
** The TropeCodifier for music videos is believed to be ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FabM1RJTkrY Pop Muzik]]'' by M. The director, Brian Grant, [[http://goldenageofmusicvideo.com/?p=226 was on record saying]] that he was given a [[NoBudget budget limit of £2000]], so he had little choice but to produce the video on a 'white cyc' background and edit the video on the fly. The rest, as they say, is history.

* The video for Music/{{Erasure}}'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSnLGdpjWf4 cover]] of ABBA's aforementioned "Take a Chance on Me".

* ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'': The UsefulNotes/NintendoDS version has such a room with a secret Power Star inside. You can access it by going into the room with the mirror wall (where the portal to Snowman's Land is) as Luigi, grabbing a Power Flower to become intangible, and going into the mirror's reflection and entering the door on the other side.
* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'' has a benign one in the 101% ending. In it, Cranky holds auditions for the cast of the game to see if any of them should be cast in a later game for the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube (as denoted by the [[DevelopmentGag dolphin picture]] on the auditions sign). [[TerribleIntervieweesMontage Cranky is never seen giving the OK to anyone]], though.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hBHh5tsiY8 Capoeira Fitness (Nike Courses)]]

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQYYM6t8Qfk Kim Strother]]

* ''WesternAnimation/YellowSubmarine'': What remains after the Vacuum Monster sucks everything up, including the scenery and ultimately ''itself''--Then, after ''somehow'' surviving intact, where the title vehicle ends up and its group find Jeremy.

* ''Film/THX1138'' takes place in a dystopian society with a spartan, barren aesthetic. Locations tend to be either stark white, dull grey or some combination of the two. The prison is a white void that seems to stretch on endlessly, but is actually much smaller than it appears.
* In ''Film/TheMatrix'', the Construct appeared like this when its users aren't running simulations. It could also be used to procure supplies to take into the Matrix, such as guns. Lots of guns. The Architect's lair would be this if he didn't stick a bunch of TV's to the wall.
* ''Film/MenInBlack'' has some, specifically the Deneuralizing Room. Eventually, we come to realize that it's basically a large toilet bowl.
* The MadeForTVMovie ''Film/MrStitch'' ( a [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci Fi]] [[Film/SyfyOriginalMovie Original]], mid-1990s, basically a very weird retelling of the Frankenstein story) featured a white room with minimalistic furniture, as the space where the titular creation spent his first several weeks of consciousness before escaping.
* The detention room in ''Film/SkyHigh2005'' is this, plus desks. The room also turns off the students' powers.

%%* The center of the Torus in ''Epoch''.
* The time travel chamber in ''Series/GuestFromTheFuture'' is a blank white room with a small control stand in the center.
* The Day Of Wonders virtual reality program in the ''Film/{{Apocalypse}}'' series by Cloud Ten Pictures takes place in a white room with the DigitalAvatar of TheAntichrist offering whoever enters it the MarkOfTheBeast, with the alternative being death, usually by [[OffWithHisHead decapitation]].

* In Richard Lester's ''Film/TheKnackAndHowToGetIt'', Tom sees a room is for rent in the protagonist's home, moves in unannounced, and promptly starts painting everything in it white, including the furniture, floor and windowpanes. Tom is a bit mad, and was evicted from his last place for painting ''it'' white.
* Creator/NicoleKidman's character Suzanne Stone-Maretto often talks to the fourth wall while in one of these types of rooms in ''Film/ToDieFor.''

* ''Film/{{Flashdance}}'' Alex and her friends work out in one of these rooms.
* ''Film/DaftPunksElectroma'' features one. Exaggerated to the point where the workers in the room are also wearing white and don't have distinguishable outlines, resulting in them [[ChameleonCamouflage perfectly blending into the white walls]].
* The portal rooms in the ''Film/{{Phantasm}}'' series have this.
* At the beginning of ''Film/UnderTheSkin'', the protagonist drags the body of woman into one of these, where she [[spoiler:takes her clothing for her own, so she can prey on hitchhikers.]]
* ''Film/OhGod'' - Jerry goes to one of these for his interview with God. Though not seamless, it definitely invokes this trope, everything seems to be covered in a coat of white paint. There's a window that overlooks what seems to be a black, white, and gray city.
* ''Film/TheDawnsHereAreQuiet'': The members of the AmazonBrigade fighting [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII against the Germans]] keep having flashbacks and imagine spots throughout the movie. Some are presented fairly realistically but some are presented symbolically in a White Void Room. For example, one woman imagines the massacre of her family by the Germans: they are sitting at the dinner table, screaming German dialogue is heard, and the white void room starts blinking red.
* ''Film/{{Cube}}'' ends with the last surviving character walking into a blinding white void. Given the metaphysical themes of the film it wouldn't be surprising that he's literally walking into a dimensional void, but the prequel reveals it to really be a giant room with white walls.
* ''Film/{{Nothing}}'', also directed by Creator/VincenzoNatali, ends with the leads having wished away ''everything'', leaving them here.
* In the film ''Film/{{Bruce Almighty}}'', a scene where Bruce is seen being hit by a truck and then sent to Heaven to talk to God. Often this trope is used to represent Heaven.
* The movie ''Film/HumanNature'' centers around a [[LoveTriangle romantic triangle]] between a man who was raised in the woods, and as such grew up being feral, a very hairy woman, and a researcher obsessed with table manners. They all tell [[RashomonStyle their version of the film's events,]] the feral man in a congressional hearing, her in an interrogation room, and the researcher, [[HowWeGotHere who died right before the film's beginning,]] in a house that resembled his childhood home, painted white, and decorated with white furnishings.

* ''Film/TheBostonStrangler'': The interrogation room where Bottomly grills SerialKiller Albert [=DeSalvo=] in the third act is maybe not technically a White Void Room, as there is a door and a one-way observation glass window. But it is otherwise painted all in white, and for that matter Albert himself is dressed in an all-white prisoner jumpsuit, symbolizing his isolation and exposure in the featureless room. The movie then ends, and the credits roll, as Albert is shown standing in a corner of the White Void Room, which in this shot lacks the interview table or any features at all.
* ''Film/TheImmaculateRoom''. In a psychological experiment the protagonists have to live in a white room for fifty days, for which they'll win a huge sum. After some time in the room one of them gives up $100,000 in prize money just to 'buy' a green crayon to add color to the place.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Literature/GimmicksThree": Welby must escape from a room with no features aside from bronze walls.
* Creator/RoaldDahl's ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'': Aside from the camera setup at one end and the television monitor setup at the other, the Television-Chocolate Room is "completely bare" and white thanks to the walls, floor, and ceiling being painted such, as well as the extremely bright light coming from overhead lamps (so bright that one cannot enter the room without donning special dark glasses).

* Creator/KimNewman's ''Diogenes Club'': In "Literature/{{Swellhead}}", Richard Jeperson has retreated from contact with the outside world. Sent to recruit him for one last mission, Stacy finds he's turned his bedroom into one of these, to minimize his exposure to stimuli.
* Creator/PaulRobinson's ''Literature/InstrumentOfGod'': The magistrate tells two lawyers how they have a "stasis field" that suspends people in another area where ten minutes passes in their world no matter how long the person is in the field. In this case it's used to send someone to the prison law library, but in cases of misconduct or bad behavior ("sending them to Coventry") it can be turned into a completely white room. The magistrate even uses a ShoutOut to the White Room from ''Film/TheMatrix''. It's used for solitary confinement for disciplinary cases, generally one minute, but it's considered so bad a punishment that the maximum time the courts will allow them to use it is one hour.
* Creator/RogerWilliams's ''Literature/TheMetamorphosisOfPrimeIntellect'': Several characters in a post-TechnologicalSingularity universe living in white void rooms. Most, though, find that they don't really want to live in a completely featureless white void, and and up decorating their living areas, thus completely missing the point of not owning anything when there's no longer any meaning to concepts like "home".
* ''Literature/EscapistDream'' has place that players go to before embarking into the virtual reality world Escapist Dream called the Lobby. It's basically this white room "bleached so much that it was painful to look at". Although a bit cliched that a virtual reality story has this feature, it was later revealed in the following chapters that the creators of the Escapist Dream were inspired by ''Film/TheMatrix'', hence why they have a white void room.

* The "night loops" of Germans kid TV series "Bernd das Brot" always play in such a room, nicknamed "White Hell". (Also, it has [[WrapAround torus topology]], so running away is no option for poor Bernd.)
* In ''Series/TheBrave'' episode "Desperate Measures", Jaz is interrogated by Qods Force in a room where everything, including the furniture, is white. Her interrogator even wears an all-white suit and the guards wear all-white military uniforms.
* ''Series/BigMouth2022'': The place that Changho gets taken to in episode 8 is nothing but an eery, empty (save for the creepy deaf guy next to him), white room in an entirely white mental center. Even the bed he's lying on is white.

* ''Series/DoctorWho''

* As The Batter's mission in ''VideoGame/{{OFF}}'' is to [[OmnicidalManiac purify the Zones,]] which is a nice way of saying "killing everyone and turning the Zones into a blank, lifeless hellscape," the entire game's mechanic ''is this.'' After being purified, the only creatures remaining in the Zones are [[HumanoidAbomination the Secretaries,]] and the only thing to hear is faint, dissonant music, littered with sobbing, cryptic whispers, and the sound of someone frantically pounding on a door.

** Music/{{Madness}} - ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlrR66WX74g It Must Be Love]]'', and ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV1_7R_3cXA Driving In My Car]]'' (although interspersed with live action cuts)
*** They also appear in it on the album cover of ''Music/OneStepBeyond''.

* In ''Film/TheImmaculateRoom''. In a psychological experiment the protagonists have to live in a white room for fifty days, for which they'll win a huge sum. After some time in the room one of them gives up $100,000 in prize money just to 'buy' a green crayon to add color to the place.

** Music/{{Queen}}, strangely, for the video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw8ojWh0KOQ&feature=related "Calling All Girls"]]. It was their tribute to ''Film/THX1138'', and it fits with the theme of the song.

** Music/TalkingHeads - ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1wg1DNHbNU Once In A Lifetime]]'' variant with video animations.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePatrickStarShow'': In "[[Recap/ThePatrickStarShowS1E19HomeEcchFunAndDone Fun & Done!]]", since [[TheBore Andy]]'s imagination has been locked away, the inside of his head is entirely white with subtle shades of gray. When SpongeBob and Patrick unleash his imagination, the room becomes full of rainbow-colored liquid. Eventually, they seal it back up, making the room empty again.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', episode titled "SB-129", Squidward attempts to avoid Spongebob and Patrick by going to the Krusty Krab and hidding in the walk-in freezer. He is then locked in and forgotten, causing him to get frozen for two-thousand years. In the future, Spongebob (called Spongtron) leads Squidward to a time machine which Squidward later breaks. Squidward is then seen what seems to be lost in time; he is in an empty white void with no other sea creatures, objects, or scenery.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_torture "White Torture"]] uses this for psychological torture. Prisoners are placed in a windowless, soundproof, white room. All furnishings are painted in white and are completely smooth. Neon tubes are placed in the ceiling to keep the room lit at all times and prevent shadows from appearing. For food, prisoners are served unseasoned white rice. The objective of all this is to simulate [[AndIMustScream sensory deprivation]] without actually restraining the prisoner.

* The MadeForTVMovie ''Mr. Stitch'' ( a [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci Fi]] [[Film/SyfyOriginalMovie Original]], mid-1990s, basically a very weird retelling of the Frankenstein story) featured a white room with minimalistic furniture, as the space where the titular creation spent his first several weeks of consciousness before escaping.

-->"God really IS an old, white guy."

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': "Tapestry" opens with Picard succumbing to injuries he's received when he finds himself in a white void room, where he spots a shadowy figure. As he goes towards it, [[OhCrap he sees that it's Q]].

** ''[[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRollercoasterOfFriendship Rollercoaster of Friendship]]'': Vignette Valencia's phone is enchanted to send whatever she takes a picture of to a featureless white plane (eliciting a OhNoNotAgain reaction from Rainbow Dash referencing the above example). [[SubvertedTrope Turns out it's just an empty room]] at the park that just happens to be white.

-->'''Q:''' Welcome to the afterlife, Jean-Luc. You're dead.
-->'''Picard:''' Q, what is going on?
-->'''Q:''' I told you. You're dead. [[AGodAmI This is the afterlife, and I'm God]].
-->'''Picard:''' You are not God!
-->'''Q:''' Blasphemy! You're lucky I don't cast you out, or smite you or something. The bottom line is, your life ended about five minutes ago, under the inept ministrations of Doctor Beverly Crusher.
-->'''Picard:''' No. I am not dead. Because I refuse to believe that the afterlife is run by you. The universe is not so badly designed.

-->'''T'Pol:''' Why are you here?\\

* Music/{{Miserable}} plays with this by being in a ''blue'' featureless expanse, where the members of Music/{{Lit}} walk all over the curves of a [[GiantWoman gargantuan]] Creator/PamelaAnderson as she lounges around in a white bikini and platform stripper pumps. Eventually, after spending most of the video eyeing, giggling, and flirting with them [[spoiler: she [[SwallowedWhole swallows each member alive.]] ]]

* Surprisingly ''not'' the "White Room" described in the Music/EricClapton song quoted, which features "black curtains"

* As well as Music/MichaelJackson's "Scream" [[note]]Technically not featureless, but it was clearly executed as an InvokedTrope[[/note]], Music/ChrisBrown's "I Can Transform Ya," and about a million other music videos.

--> '''Genstar:''' Must be easy... To draw!

* ''WebComic/AskACat'' generally avoid backgrounds unless they're necessary.
* [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=580 The idling holosimulator]] from ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt''.

[[folder:Web Original]]

-->'''Elmer Fudd''': Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Well anyway, I [[ElmuhFuddSyndwome finawwy]] got even with that scwewy wabbit!

--> '''Bob:''' W-w-w-where are we?
--> '''Larry:''' ''<{{Beat}}>'' The... ''future!''
--> '''Bob:''' Wow, the future sure is... ''white.''
--> '''Larry:''' Yep, the future's been white since [[TheSeventies the 70s]].
--> '''Bob:''' Wow, I didn't know that.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocoyo}}'' takes place in one.