Kat Jungnickel
Staff details
Kat's research explores the role of technologies in relation to mobilities, bodies, gender and DiY cultures. Drawing on STS and Feminist Technoscience, she explores how people radically re-invent and re-imagine socio-political worlds with mundane and ordinary things.
Making and engaging are integral to Kat’s work. Her multi-dimensional practice research spans from time-lapse videos and enquiry-machines to installations and costumes. She started “speculative sewing” in the Bikes & Bloomers research and develops this further in her ERC funded Politics of Patents (POP) project about citizenship, invention and 200 years of wearable-tech. This approach stitches together theory, data and methods into 3D arguments. It opens up for discussion embodied, object-oriented and performative ways of thinking with and about inventive forms of knowledge transmission.
She is PI on the ERC funded “Politics of Patents: Re-imagining citizenship via clothing inventions” and co-director of Methods Lab
Research interests
Kat’s research combines critical analysis and inventive practice with a commitment to public engagement. Her focus on mobilities, bodies, gender and DiY cultures contributes to STS, feminist technoscience and mobility studies. Her approach is informed by an interest in making sociological arguments in multi-dimensional forms.
Kat has a track record for rigorous, original and interdisciplinary funded research. She has experience leading multi-scaled projects and teams, developing inventive methods and new modes of knowledge transmission. These include ESRC, AHRC, college and industry grants and an ERC consolidator grant.
Projects include:
Politics of Patents - PI
POP is an ambitious 5yr project that examines 200yrs of clothing inventions in the European Patent Office and other sites. Kat leads a team of sewing social scientists in the POPLab using quantitative, in-depth visual and document analysis, ethnography, interviews and speculative sewing – making and wearing historic data – to develop insights into the history of invention, wearable technology and citizenship.
Bikes & Bloomers - PI
B&B explores Victorian cycling, early wearable technology and radical feminist cultures of invention. It combines archival research with the making of a collection of “convertible” cycle costumes, inspired by 1890s patents. Kat led an interdisciplinary team - tailor, artist, weaver, researchers - to make costumes, give talks, workshops, performances and exhibitions. The project resulted in a book, articles, animations, time-lapse videos and open access sewing pattern packs.
Transmissions - PI
Transmissions is an ESRC/ Intel funded project that brought together a range of researchers in and outside the academy to explore, critique and foster knowledge exchange around inventive methods and knowledge transmission. Held in UK, US and Germany, events featured talks, workshops, exhibitions and performances. An edited book was published by MIT Press.
Publications and research outputs
Book
Hjorth, Larissa; Harris, Anne M.; Jungnickel, Katrina and Coombs, Gretchen. 2020. Creative Practice Ethnographies. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. ISBN 9781498572125
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2018. Bikes and Bloomers: Victorian Women Inventors and their Extraordinary Cycle Wear. London: Goldsmiths Press. ISBN 9781906897758
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2014. DIY WiFi: Re-imagining Connectivity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-31252-5
Edited Book
Jungnickel, Katrina, ed. 2020. Transmissions: critical tactics for making and communicating research. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262043403
Book Section
Bonham, Jennifer and Jungnickel, Katrina. 2022. Cycling and Gender: Past, Present and Paths Ahead. In: Glen Norcliffe; Una Brogan; Peter Cox; Boyang Gao; Tony Hadland; Sheila Hanlon; Tim Jones; Nicholas Oddy and Luis Vivanco, eds. Routledge Companion to Cycling. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 24-32. ISBN 9780367683993
Jungnickel, Kat and Hjorth, Larissa. 2020. Doing Critical Creative Practice and Social Research. In: Larissa Hjorth; Adriana de Souza e Silva and Klare Lanson, eds. The Routledge Companion to Mobile Media Art. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780429242816
Jefferies, Janis K.. 2020. Performing and Provoking. In: Katrina Jungnickel, ed. Transmissions: Critical Tactics for Making and Communicating Research. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, pp. 173-194. ISBN 9780262043403
Mchardy, Julien and Jungnickel, Katrina. 2020. Machines for Enquiring. In: Katrina Jungnickel, ed. Transmissions: Critical Tactics for Making and Communicating Research. Massachusetts: MIT Press, pp. 36-64. ISBN 9780262043403
Spinney, Justin and Jungnickel, Katrina. 2019. Studying Mobilities. In: Paul Atkinson; Sarah Delamont; Alexandru Cernat; Joseph W. Sakshaug and Richard A. Williams, eds. SAGE Research Methods Foundations. London: SAGE Publications. ISBN 9781526421036
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2017. Making things to make sense of things: DiY as research subject and practice. In: Jentery Sayers, ed. The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities. Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 9781138844308
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2017. Making “ournet not the internet”: an ethnography of home-brew high-tech practices in suburban Australia. In: Larissa Hjorth; Heather Horst; Anne Galloway and Genevieve Bell, eds. The Routledge Companion to Digital Ethnography. Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 9781138940918
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2017. Mobile Devices of Resistance: Victorian Inventors, Women Cyclists, and Convertible Cycle Wear. In: Howard Caygill; Martina Leeker and Tobias Schulze, eds. Inventions in Digital Cultures: Technology, the Political, Methods. Lüneburg: Meson Press, pp. 123-136. ISBN 978-3-95796-110-5
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2015. Jumps, stutters and other failed images: using time-lapse video in cycling research. In: Charlotte Bates, ed. Video Methods: Social Science Research in Motion. London: Routledge, Advances in Research Methods series., pp. 121-141. ISBN 0415734010
Article
Jungnickel, Kat. 2023. Convertible, multiple and hidden: The inventive lives of women’s sport and activewear 1890–1940. Sociological Review, ISSN 0038-0261
Jungnickel, Kat and May, Katja. 2023. From 100-year-old women’s motoring masks to contemporary PPE: A socio-political study of persistent problems and inventive possibilities. Sociology, ISSN 0038-0385
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2023. Speculative sewing: Researching, reconstructing, and re-imagining wearable technoscience. Social Studies of Science, 53(1), pp. 146-162. ISSN 0306-3127
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2023. Clothing inventions as acts of citizenship? The politics of material participation, wearable technologies and women patentees in late Victorian Britain. Science Technology & Human Values, 48(1), pp. 9-33. ISSN 0162-2439
Jungnickel, Katrina; May, Katja and Fowles, Ellen. 2022. Patently revolutionary What an 1895 bicycle skirt tells us about gender, citizenship and change. The Sociological Review Magazine, 2022(June),
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2021. Speculatively sewing historic clothing patents. Interactions, 28(4), pp. 15-17. ISSN 1072-5520
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2021. Politics of Patents: Researching, making and wearing alternative histories of clothing inventions. Digital Culture & Society, 6(1), pp. 207-210. ISSN 2364-2114
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2018. The ingenious cyclewear Victorian women invented to navigate social mores, The Guardian Bike Blog, June 2018. The Guardian, Bike Blog,
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2015. Sewing as a design method. ACM Interactions, 22(6), p. 72.
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2015. ‘‘One needs to be very brave to stand all that’’: Cycling, rational dress and the struggle for citizenship in late nineteenth century Britain. Geoforum, 64, pp. 362-371. ISSN 0016-7185
Forlano, Laura and Jungnickel, Katrina. 2015. Hacking Binaries/Hacking Hybrids: Understanding the Black/White Binary as a Socio-technical Practice. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology(6), ISSN 2325-0496
Jungnickel, Katrina and Hjorth, Larissa. 2014. Methodological entanglements in the field: Methods, transitions and transmissions. Visual Studies, 29(2), pp. 136-145. ISSN 1472-586X
Aldred, Rachel and Jungnickel, Katrina. 2014. Why culture matters for transport policy: the case of cycling in the UK. Journal of Transport Geography, 34, pp. 78-87. ISSN 0966-6923
Jungnickel, Katrina and Aldred, Rachel. 2013. Cycling’s Sensory Strategies: How Cyclists Mediate their Exposure to the Urban Environment. Mobilities, 9(2), pp. 238-255. ISSN 1745-0101
Aldred, Rachel and Jungnickel, Katrina. 2013. Matter in or out of place? Bicycle parking strategies and their effects on people, practices and places. Social & Cultural Geography, 14(6), pp. 604-624. ISSN 1464-9365
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2013. Getting there… and back: how ethnographic commuting (by bicycle) shaped a study of Australian backyard technologists. Qualitative Research, 14(6), pp. 640-655. ISSN 1468-7941
Aldred, Rachel and Jungnickel, Katrina. 2012. Constructing Mobile Places between ‘Leisure’ and ‘Transport’: A Case Study of Two Group Cycle Rides. Sociology, 46(3), pp. 523-539. ISSN 0038-0385
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2012. On being 'out there': Experiencing, examining and representing cycling cultures. Off Tour,
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2010. Exhibiting ethnographic knowledge: Making sociology about makers of technology. Street Signs, pp. 32-35. ISSN 2043-0124
Conference or Workshop Item
Jungnickel, Katrina; Fairfax, Duncan; Ballie, Jen and Wilkie, Alex. 2015. 'AHRC ProtoPublics Project Presentation - "The Dewey Organ"'. In: AHRC ProtoPublics Research Projects Presentation. AHRC Design Symposium, United Kingdom 25/09/2015.
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2014. 'Live Transmissions: Critical conversations about crafting, performing and making'. In: Live Transmissions: Critical conversations about crafting, performing and making. London, United Kingdom 11-14 June 2014.
Design
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2018. Bikes and Bloomers #1 Pulley Cycling Skirt.
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2018. Bikes and Bloomers Pattern#2 Cycling Semi-Skirt.
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2018. Bikes and Bloomers Pattern #3 Three Piece Cycling Suit.
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2018. Bikes and Bloomers Pattern #4 Cycling Skirt/ Cape.
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2018. Bikes and Bloomers Pattern #5 Side-Button Cycling Skirt.
Film/Video
Jungnickel, Kat and Syndicate, Adventure. 2023. Women on the Move Trailer.
Jungnickel, Kat and Syndicate, Adventure. 2023. Women on the Move - film and afterword.
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2018. Goldsmiths research questions: What secrets did Victorian cyclists hide in their wardrobes?.
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2014. Bloomer Making Workshop & Bloomer Ride, ESRC funded 'Freedom of Movement: the bike, bloomer and female cyclist in late nineteenth century Britain', www.bikesandbloomers.com.
Show/Exhibition
Jungnickel, Katrina; Fairfax, Duncan; Ballie, Jen and Wilkie, Alex. 2015. The Dewey Organ Project. In: "Imagination Festival", Govanhill Baths, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 4-6 September 2015.
Thesis
Jungnickel, Katrina. 2008. Making WiFi: A Sociological Study of Backyard Technologists in Suburban Australia. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London
