A featureless white room. 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 literal white voids represent some "other realm"—usually a result of a dream or crossing over to another 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 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 holosimulator, or some other place where literally anything can happen…
Inverted in The Time Ships, by Stephen Baxter. The Time Traveler is imprisoned by Morlocks by means of a single shaft of light in a seemingly- infinite black room. He's psychologically unable to walk out of sight of the beam…
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THX1138
Date: 2016-01-08 05:47 pm (UTC)http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhiteVoidRoom
A featureless white room. 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 literal white voids represent some "other realm"—usually a result of a
dream or crossing over to another 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 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
holosimulator, or some other place where literally anything can happen…
Inverted in The Time Ships, by Stephen Baxter. The Time Traveler is
imprisoned by Morlocks by means of a single shaft of light in a seemingly-
infinite black room. He's psychologically unable to walk out of sight of
the beam…