Modern Horror Vacui

MODERN HORROR VACUI is a personal project that explores the concept of emptiness in contemporary times.

A visual investigation into silence, absence, and the meaning of space.

Motion Design

Illustration

We live in an age that fears silence, that shuns pause and emptiness as if they were signs of failure or inefficiency. Every space, physical or mental is saturated with stimuli, notifications, images or words.

Absence becomes an anomaly to be filled and an inconvenience to be erased, but it’s precisely in that emptiness that we can find a free space : a moment that allows to rest, breathe and create.

This reflection is the origin of “MODERN HORROR VACUI”, an ode to emptiness in all of its forms.

The use of a vivid, almost intrusive green is a deliberate visual choice within the short : this color functions as an element of disruption, invading the frame and symbolically filling the empty spaces that the film seeks to preserve. Every appearance of this intense green represents the contemporary impulse to occupy.

The recurring presence of holes and gaps within the illustrations functions as a direct visual metaphor for absence. These voids interrupt the composition, a reminder that emptiness is not the opposite of presence, but something that coexists with it. These voids appear within otherwise complete forms, suggesting that even within what seems full or defined, a silent space persists.

The soundtrack reinforces this approach through minimalism and contrast : the chosen musical accompaniment alternates between sparse, almost silent passages and sudden intrusions of sound.