Intuition on Kulkarni-Nomizu product


I understand that $T \KN S$ is a curvature like tensor, in the sense that it satisfies the following symmetries:

1. $(T \KN S)(\vec{x},\vec{y},\vec{z},\vec{w}) = -(T\KN S)(\vec{y},\vec{x},\vec{z},\vec{w}) = -(T \KN S)(\vec{x},\vec{y},\vec{w},\vec{z})$;
2. $(T \KN S)(\vec{x},\vec{y},\vec{z},\vec{w}) = (T \KN S)(\vec{z},\vec{w},\vec{x},\vec{y})$;
3. $(T \KN S)(\vec{x},\vec{y},\vec{z},\cdot)+(T \KN S)(\vec{y},\vec{z},\vec{x},\cdot)+(T \KN S)(\vec{z},\vec{x},\vec{y},\cdot)=0$, if $T$ and $S$ are symmetric.

We also have the bonus property that $T \KN S = S \KN T$.

And although this quantity appearing frequently in certain calculations is enough justificative for giving it a name and notation, this seems artificial to me so far.

I do not have any intuition whatsoever for that formula, nor can I think of a way to write it neatly as $\sum_{\sigma \in S_4}{\rm something}$. We can write $$(T\KN S)(\vec{x},\vec{y},\vec{z},\vec{w}) = \begin{vmatrix} T(\vec{x},\vec{z}) & S(\vec{y},\vec{z}) \\ T(\vec{x},\vec{w}) & S(\vec{y},\vec{w})\end{vmatrix}-\begin{vmatrix} T(\vec{y},\vec{z}) & S(\vec{x},\vec{z}) \\ T(\vec{y},\vec{w}) & S(\vec{x},\vec{w})\end{vmatrix},$$but I'm failing to interpret this either.

I'd like some insight on this definition.

If I didn't mess up, we have the more "symmetric" expression

$$(T\KN S)(\vec{x},\vec{y},\vec{z},\vec{w}) = \begin{vmatrix} T(\vec{x},\vec{z}) & S(\vec{x}+\vec{y},\vec{z}) \\ T(\vec{x},\vec{w}) & S(\vec{x}+\vec{y},\vec{w})\end{vmatrix}+\begin{vmatrix} S(\vec{x},\vec{z}) & T(\vec{x}+\vec{y},\vec{z}) \\ S(\vec{x},\vec{w}) & T(\vec{x}+\vec{y},\vec{w})\end{vmatrix}.$$Still not happy.

$$\newcommand\KN{\bigcirc\kern-2.5ex\wedge \;}$$Your symmetries $$1-2$$ are equivalent to requiring that $$T \KN S \in S^2(\Lambda^2 V)$$; so what we're really trying to do is to take bilinear forms on $$V$$ (in practice these are usually built from the metric and the Ricci tensor) and turn them into bilinear forms on $$\Lambda^2 V$$.
Any symmetric bilinear form $$T \in S^2 V$$ naturally induces a symmetric bilinear form on two-forms $$\Lambda^2 T \in S^2 (\Lambda^2 V)$$ via the formula $$(\Lambda^2 T)(v \wedge w, x \wedge y) = T(v,x)T(w,y) - T(v,y) T(x,w).$$ If you're unconvinced about the naturality of this construction, note that it corresponds via raising an index to the endomorphism $$\Lambda^2 T^\sharp : \Lambda^2 V \to \Lambda^2 V$$ induced on two-forms by an endomorphism $$T^\sharp : V \to V$$, which may be more familiar.
Thinking of $$\Lambda^2$$ as a function $$S^2V \to S^2(\Lambda^2 V)$$, we see that it is in fact a (vector-valued) quadratic form. By polarizing this quadratic form (a natural thing to do!) we get a symmetric bilinear form on $$S^2(V)$$. This bilinear form is (up to a factor of $$\frac12$$) the Kulkarni-Nomizu product. That is, the K-N product is the unique symmetric bilinear mapping $$S^2(V) \times S^2(V) \to S^2(\Lambda^2 V)$$ such that $$T \KN T = 2\Lambda^2 T$$. (I think the factor of $$2$$ is an unfortunate historical accident, but it does have the convenient property of making the curvature tensor of the sphere equal to $$g \KN g$$.)