Body Horror Filmmaker David Cronenberg Is Selling His Kidney Stones As An NFT

David Cronenberg, considered a pioneer of the body-horror film genre, has put up a picture of his passed kidney stones as a non-fungible token (NFT) for sale.

Yup, you read that right. Titled Kidney Stones and Inner Beauty, the digital asset went up for sale on cryptocurrency marketplace SuperRare last month, with the reserve price of 10 ETH (US$28,000). 

Said to have been produced over two years, Cronenberg lovingly calls his group of peculiar-looking stones his “Inner Beauty Collection” in reference to a character in his movie, Dead Ringers. 

In the film, one of the twin physicians wonders why there isn’t a beauty contest for the insides of the human body instead of its façade, inspiring the director to come up with this image in which he saw “a luminous narrative generated by a group of my inner organs.” 

“I think each stone presents a unique aesthetic of structure, color, and organic content that engages with the mystery of my essence, my reality, which is my body, inside and out,” he added.  

According to Artnet News, this NFT project is the second Cronenberg has embarked on, having created The Death of David Cronenberg last year, which featured a rather unsettling one-minute video he produced with his daughter, which sold for about US$75,000.

The filmmaker is also set to release his latest movie, Crimes of the Future, in June, starring Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart, and Léa Seydoux in a creepy story about a performance artist who publicly removes his organs as part of the show.

[via Newsweek, Artnet News, and SuperRare, cover image via David Cronenberg / SuperRare]