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: 
*The Room* is about a man whose love life runs off the rails and ends in a brutal break-up. This is a topic that a *lot* of people are interested in. *La La Land* is about the same theme. *Shrek* seems like that's how it's going to end leading into the final act. I can't begin to list how many breakup songs have hit the top 10 charts.

The reason people don't like *The Room* isn't because the premise of the story is bad. It's because the movie was poorly executed. Honestly, you can probably make a story about any premise you want to. Would you be interested in reading a book about someone learning how to work at a post office? Apparently a lot of people would, because Terry Prachet's novel *Going Postal* is held in high regard. Would you read a book about a bunch of rich, stupid twenty-somethings going to Spain and getting drunk all the time? That's the plot to *The Sun Also Rises*, a cultural touchstone written by Ernest Hemingway. Heck, you can describe *The Room* as being about a spoiled rich guy who has awful relationships and then dies, and that's also the synopsis of *The Great Gatsby*.

Don't worry too much about whether your premise is workable. I contend you can make a good story out of literally any premise. What determines whether people will read your story or not is how well you've executed on your idea. So practice writing a lot, make multiple editing passes on your story, join a writing group, ask friends who can give honest critiques to read your work - do whatever it takes to be certain that your writing is solid, and your story will come alive.
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.