Question: Planning on writing a picture sci-fi book about Utopia.
The book will not have a plot (story), sequence or any conclusion. It will have approximately 30 illustrations generally depicting a search for Utopia, accompanied by minimal text for each illustration. Similar to a photo book.
Has anything similar to this been published before?
Could this spur sufficient interest?

Answer: 
If anything kept me awake at night (and some things have) I'd presume it was likely real trouble.

Look for groups or websites online that deal with the topics that interest you. If you can't find any with significant membership, those topics may not be worthy of exploring in book length form. 

As far as "observations of life", it depends on the observations. If you find realistic observations or patterns, you can incorporate those into your book. If you plan to teach "life lessons" in your book, I think very few people are interested in that. People read fiction for entertainment, adventure, and the "life lessons" of fiction are pretty much always the same (and in large part aspirational and seldom apply to real life). The good shall prevail, crime does not pay, persevere and you will win, risk it all and you shall not be disappointed, in your darkest hour you can still find a way.

So I'm not going to tell you everything will be all right, just keep writing and hope it will work. The goal of writing fiction should be to entertain an audience, and audiences are pretty predictable. Look at what else is selling, if they don't include the kinds of things that are in your notebook (in the same quantity you hope to infuse your work with what is in your notebook) then chances are high your work will not be a commercial success.

We do like new characters, new heroes, new villains, new settings, and other original and imaginative components. But they will still, like nearly all commercial fiction, fit into the three act structure and teach the standard, well-worn, tried-and-true lessons of fiction that everybody loves to hear again and again.
What is interesting to the reader completely depends on the reader (the targeted and reached audience). For instance, people at a library will like different kind of books than people commuting by train.

The only way to know if people find your book interesting is to let people read your book (or parts of it, and then hope it represents the full quality of your book).
Let 10 people rate your book (chapter) on a scale from 0 = most boring stuff I've ever read to 10 = most interesting I've ever read. Let 10 other people rate a book with a similar amount of pages. Don't disclose which is your book. Then perform a T-test between the two groups.

If you're targeting a wide audience use popular narrative techniques. You might look at popular recently publicized books for techniques and constructs.

If you're targeting a niche audience, use in-group language and technical terms. Communicating with an in-group language that is understood by the reader gives a sense of belongingness.

If target audience is only one person writing an interesting book is the easiest. When there are 2 or more persons there will always be disagreement.