Deutsche Börse prize review – from crotchless knickers to the sound of a grave

Photographers’ Gallery, London
The photographic equivalent of the Turner prize delves into our current state of loss and absence to such a degree that one installation doesn’t feature images at all

• Mind-bending photography: the Deutsche Börse prize – in pictures

I’m standing in a black box. It’s so dark I can hardly see. There are ominous scraping and scratching sounds, the distinctive chink of metal, the vexing buzz of insects reverbing through a subwoofer. The effect is bodily, a kind of reverse ASMR. It sounds like death. And it turns out that’s exactly what I’m listening to.

A sound installation devoid of visuals is a bold entry point for an exhibition of photography. But it also makes sense, since it deals with two of photography’s biggest current problems: absence and apathy. Photography’s consistent failures to see, the impossibility of describing everything in visual terms – these have become compelling subjects, and they surface in the displays by all four shortlisted artists at this year’s Deutsche Börse photography foundation prize.